Not Quite What You Meant
by Asviloka
Summary: My responses to various prompts across the internet. Story length, genre, and quality will vary. Most will be from HPfanfiction on Reddit, the only social platform I actually visit regularly.
1. You called for me?

Prompt from aMiserable_creature on Reddit:

 _The Order of Phoenix needs someone with the_ _knowledge_ _of how to defeat Voldemort. They have someone with the power(the BWL), but they don't know how the power works._

 _So, they do the ritual, and boom! You(or an OC-SI), the unsuspecting potterhead immediately are confused and realize what has happened(through the power of reading Summoning fanfics)_

 _They are all shocked that it's just some common muggle? They were expecting a Harry(the BWL) or Hermione from another world to come and explain to them. But they used the word knowledge, not power, or someone that has already done the duty of defeating Voldemort once. How would a ordinary muggle know the dark secrets of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?_

 _You immediately explain the Harry Potter book series to them, and they are all confounded. Someone knows all of Harry from a different world's thoughts? What?! Dumbledore is gay?_

 _Bonus for explaining fanfiction-Imagine Harry's thought at fanfictions where he kills everybody or is Peverell-Gryffindor-Melin-etc-etc-etc-etc-ROYG-Black-Violet._

 _Dumbledore would not be aware of the horcruxes(or at least how many, or something crucial). He might not even know that TMR JR is Voldemort, or other crucial things like the prophecy, etc (I would like for the SI to tell him something that he knew in the books that's important that he wouldn't know in this world)_

 _It would be interesting if it was an AU world, or even a popular fanfiction-verse. Imagine being summoned into Seventh Horcrux or HPMOR! It would also be interesting if it had a severe bashing for one of the characters, or even a WBWL-verse where you recognize the trope and immediately state that the other Potter boy is the true BWL._

 _Something funny would also be appreciated, it doesn't really have to be serious, although that would be appreciated._

* * *

 **You called for me?**

* * *

I stumbled and almost fell, disorientation sending my vision swimming. My kindle tumbled from my hand at the jostle, and my jacket slipped out from under my arm as I lunged to catch the device. I missed, and the disorientation was severe enough that I sat down hard.

I scrambled for my kindle, hoping its case had protected it, but the screen had gone dark and blank. I pressed the power button, but it didn't turn on.

"Oh, no!" I exclaimed aloud, then scolded myself at once. "You're going to be late. Get up, you can fix the kindle later."

I gathered my possessions and stood, only then noticing that I stood in the center of a completely unfamiliar field. And I was surrounded by human-shaped heat-shimmers.

"Eep!" I held my kindle to my chest protectively, heart jumping at the sudden revelation.

"Muggle," said a cold voice, disapprovingly.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah no!" I glanced around desperately for any sign of the road, or my house, or anything remotely familiar. But no, these were not my fields, and there was no road within sight.

I'd read plenty of SI stories of course, written one myself even. Well, started one. Me and finishing things never got along the greatest, but I was working on it.

"Whoever you are, please send me back. I'm going to be late for work."

"Albus. . ." growled the same voice, sounding distinctly annoyed now.

"Patience, Severus," said a calmer voice.

One of the shimmers coalesced. It was, of course, Albus Dumbledore. He looked as wise and elderly as described, though a bit less mad and a bit more worn than I'd personally envisioned.

"Who are you?"

"You can call me A.V." I certainly wasn't going to give out my name to anyone, not in these suspicious circumstances.

Dumbledore looked around the circle, a slight frown on his face.

"Who were you _trying_ to summon?" I asked. "Because, clearly, it didn't work if you got me instead."

"We sought any with the knowledge necessary to defeat the Dark Lord," answered Severus. I'd always thought him a great character, but there was something extremely unsettling about his voice in person. I could well imagine why his students hesitated to cross him.

"Oh, is that all?" I asked. "Well, Voldemort made seven horcruxes—"

Dumbledore breathed in sharply, and I heard similar gasps of surprise from various places around the circle. Fewer than half the assemblage reacted to the word, but more than I'd have expected seemed to recognize it.

"Three were founders' objects, if we're going with traditional canon here. Slytherin's Locket, which is either in a certain cave somewhere his orphanage visited or else in 12 Grimmauld Place if Regulus defected. Ravenclaw's Diadem, which is in the room of Requirement at Hogwarts, and Hufflepuff's Cup in the Lestrange vault at Gringotts."

I paused for breath, and realized I was actually fairly thirsty as well. "I don't suppose I could get a drink?"

Dumbledore silently conjured a crystal glass from the air with the tip of his wand, which filled with water even as it solidified. I accepted it, impressed despite myself. It _was_ the first time seing real honest-to-goodness magic up close and in person, after all.

I drank, then continued. "The others are the Resurrection Stone—" again, Dumbledore reacted, though this time he only blinked. "As well as. . ." I hesitated. "I'm having a hard time remembering, actually. I know that Harry Potter is one."

 _That_ elicited gasps from everyone present.

"Oh, right, the snake. Nagini. And the diary, but did you already deal with that?"

I glanced at Dumbledore, but he didn't give any sign of recognition. "Okay, AU then. In that case, my information may be invalid— but no, your spell was supposed to conjure someone who has the knowledge, so it must be at least semi-canon compliant."

I counted on my fingers. "Harry, Snake, ring, cup, locket, tiara. . . Diary. Yep, that's all of them. So, can I go now? I'm really going to be in trouble if I'm not there soon. Recently I've been late too often as it is."

"I'm afraid we cannot reverse the ritual until Voldemort is defeated. Once its purpose is ended, it will invert and send you back to the time and place from which you were taken."

I sighed, half relief, half irritation. I wouldn't necessarily be late, but it also meant I'd be stuck here as long as it took to defeat Voldemort. Arranging all the circumstances of the book exactly would be difficult, if not impossible.

"So, if the diary hasn't been dealt with. . . was the Chamber of Secrets ever opened in the past. . .? What year is it anyway?"

"1995."

I stood straighter. "'95? Umbridge? Is Sirius okay? Is Harry having nightmares? No, of course, Sirius didn't die until the end of the school year, which would be '96."

"Umbridge?" Dumbledore asked, sounding puzzled.

"I'm going to _die_ next year?!" someone else exclaimed. The voice was more cultured than I'd have expected, but then I generally forgot just how _British_ everyone in the HP series really was.

"Perhaps not," I added hastily. "Now that I've given you invaluable strategic information about defeating Voldemort, why don't you tell me what's going on in this particular AU?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I sense no deception nor darkness from her, so you may all reveal yourselves. It seems we will be working together for the foreseeable future, so there is no purpose to attempted deception."

The shimmering figures around me resolved into people. Sirius Black seemed well enough, Severus looked as dour as ever - and twice as intimidating, - Tonks was immediately obvious by her neon green hairstyle, and Arthur and Molly Weasley by their red. I didn't immediately recognize the seventh and final figure in the circle, but it must have been a member of the Order since everyone else here was.

"So, how is Harry?"

"Harry is fine," Dumbledore said, but a faint frown creased his forehead at my bringing him up again.

"What is it?"

"It seems we have made a severe tactical error," Snape said with more than a hint of a sneer in his tone. "In our attempts to protect his brother, we failed to take proper precautions with him."

"Brother? Oh, wonderful. Are James and Lily alive?"

"No." Sirius said with some vehemence. "They would never have allowed anything like this travesty to have taken place."

"The prophecy spoke of one born _as the seventh month dies_ ," said the seventh Order member, in the tone of one repeating himself for the hundredth time. "Oswell was born at the very stroke of midnight. Harry was born several minutes later, Flora several before."

"Wait, three of them?" I asked. "I haven't heard that one before. Usually it's just twins. Or Neville." I made a mental note that, if I ever made it back, I should look for any existing stories involving Potter triplets.

"You come from an alternate reality, then? Not our own future?" Sirius sounded relieved.

"I suppose so," I said. "It's 2018 where I'm from, and it's getting harder and harder for fic writers to imagine what the nineties were like. I mean, I lived through the whole decade myself, but time makes things fuzzy. What was eighties, what was nineties, what was oughts? The twenty-teens are having a personality crisis, though; my goodness. When people look back, they'll wonder what we were collectively thinking."

"I would appreciate it if we stayed remotely on topic?" Severus interjected before my rambling could continue.

"Right, right." I said. "Where were we?"

"You asked after Harry and said he was a horcrux of the Dark Lord," Severus supplied.

"Thank you. Yes. Well, where is he?"

"He is the ward of the Malfoy family," said Arthur.

"And are they. . . Dark?" I asked.

"Yes," Severus answered. "Unflinchingly."

"I should never have allowed it," Sirius growled, padding back and forth. "It was a stupid compromise. I should have stayed firm."

"It would have only hurt the children in the end," Dumbledore said. "Peace, Sirius. You did your best."

Severus sneered. "Yes, I'm sure you couldn't possibly have been more useful despite your best efforts."

"Severus, Sirius, please," said the last man. "This is hardly the time—"

"No, I'm sick of taking his nonsense," Sirius declared, striding over to face Severus, his hand gripping his wand firmly at his side. "For three years I've had to put up with this, and he only keeps getting worse."

"Please return to your place, Sirius," Dumbledore said mildly. "Your grievances with Severus have no place in this meeting. All will be addressed in due time."

Sirius half raised his wand as though to hex Severus anyway, but Dumledore's words clearly affected him and he scowled, then stuffed his wand angrily into his pocket and stalked back to his place.

"Thank you. Now, A.V., you were asking after the fate of the Potter triplets?"

"Yes. Where are the others? Is Orwill with the Dursleys, I'm assuming?"

" _Oswell_ was indeed placed with his nearest blood relations," Sirius snarled. "Worthless muggles that they are. If I'd known what they were like, I'd never have permitted—"

"It was never your place to permit anything," Molly put in. "Just because you were friends with their father doesn't give you any stronger claim than anyone else."

"And Flora?" I prompted, before the topic could get too far from topic.

"With me," the stranger said. I looked him over more closely. His outfit seemed well-used but far from shabby. Still. . .

"Lupin?" I guessed.

"After Greyback's attack on her sanctuary, it seemed the natural solution."

"So. . . Let me see if I've got this straight. Orwill—"

"Oswell."

"Right, Oswell is the Boy Who Lived, stayed with the Dursleys, and is basically your hero/savior in training?"

General nods.

"Flora is a werewolf, training with Remus, and has no part in the prophecy?"

Again, nods.

"And Harry, who has a very mundane and obviously non-magical scar, has been adopted by the Malfoys?"

"Correct."

"But Harry is Voldemort's horcrux, so having him with a Dark family like the Malfoys will only ingrain and reinforce any Dark inclinations that growing up with direct contact with the Dark Lord's soul might have on him. Is he a Slytherin?"

Nods.

"What about the others?"

"Flora is a Ravenclaw," Lupin said.

"And Orwill is a Gryffindor?" I asked.

" _Oswell_ is a Hufflepuff, actually," Sirius said. "James would have been mortified to find that none of his children followed in his footsteps."

"Well, that's different," I mused aloud. I glanced down at my kindle, the screen still dark and unresponsive. I wished I had my laptop with me, I felt like I needed a spreadsheet or flowchart to map this thing out. _And I thought my fanfiction was complicated._

"Unless I'm much mistaken, Harry will be the actual savior of prophecy," I declared. "Either that, or he'll go completely evil and hand the world to Voldemort of his own free will. That sometimes happens too."

"No!" Molly exclaimed, looking aghast. Most of the Order seemed pretty shocked, actually.

"What do you mean, 'that sometimes happens'?" Dumblore asked carefully.

"Well. . ." I hesitated, unsure how to explain. "See, in my home universe, your universe is fictional. And it's not even canonical. I mean, you're obviously living in an AU WBWL fanfiction. And depending on the viewpoint character, Flora may be a Mary Sue who's the _actual_ child of prophecy, or Harry could be any number of alternate selves."

"You do not believe we could possibly have interpreted the signs correctly," Severus noted. "Oswell is assuredly not the proper child the prophecy spoke of?"

"Well, for that I'd have to know what the prophecy said. It varies, though it's usually something along the same lines. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches etcetera etcetera."

"Indeed," Severus said dryly.

"The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord shall come," Dumbledore intoned, "come as the seventh month dies and the fire of defiance is reborn. Those who have thrice refused the call of darkness will thrice be rewarded for their travails. First the star to guide the path, second the fire to light the way, third the lightning to strike true. Through pain and despair a new fire arises. The Dark Lord will fall beneath its flames, and hope reborn shall kindle."

"Wow," I said. "That is different, and also confusing. If the 'first second third' thing refers to the children, isn't it obvious that Harry is meant to defeat Voldemort?"

"Thrice is fire mentioned, and only spoken in reference to the middle child," Dumbledore said. "Also, Oswell was the child born _as the seventh month dies_."

"You put too much faith in prophecy, and not enough in good sense," Arthur said. "I've said it before, Dumbledore, we should never have let them be separated."

"The only way to convince the Ministry to allow a werewolf custody of Flora was to concede to Malfoy's demands," Remus said wearily. "He could have locked us in pointless bureaucracy for years had we continued to defy his request. And without me to help her, I shudder to imagine what could have happened to her."

"Third the lightning to strike true," I said quietly. "If this were a standard Canon-Compliant fic, my job would be done already. But if things are so significantly AU. . . Harry is the lightning. It could never be anything else. But where will he strike true?"

I was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy.

* * *

 _Author's Notes : _

_Yes, I know I have plenty of stories already underway. This will be short, and not high priority at all. Since finishing Fall With Me last week I've had a hard time switching from KotOR mindset back to HP, so when I saw this prompt on the HPfanfiction reddit it seemed as good a place to start getting back into the HP side of things as any. I'm trying to regain the thread of Shadow of the Past so I can post a new chapter (or at least semi-chapter) of that tomorrow, but I can make no promises._


	2. Snapped (Character List)

_Prompt by Korrin85 on Reddit: A snap happens and suddenly, half the Wizarding World disappears._

* * *

Since I've been wanting to do something like this since IW first came out, here goes. I furthermore extend this challenge to anyone reading this, if you've any interest. This is a fascinating concept to play with (mostly in small amounts, for me at least, since anything more would have to deal with societal collapse) and I haven't seen nearly enough.

I copied the Harry Potter characters list from Wikipedia, then went down the line rolling a die for each name. Even to live, odd to die. These are the results, from which I will be working for the Snapped series of oneshots. If anyone else wants to borrow the list since I already wore my hand out rolling for it, feel free.

* * *

DEAD:

Hannah Abbott, Bathilda Bagshot, Katie Bell, Amelia Bones, Susan Bones, Millicent Bulstrode, Charity Burbage, Alecto Carrow, Reginald Cattermole, Mary Cattermole, Cho Chang, Vincent Crabbe, Colin Creevey, Dennis Creevey, Dirk Cresswell, Bartemius (Barty) Crouch, Sr., Gabrielle Delacour, Mrs. Delacour, Dedalus Diggle, Amos Diggory, Cedric Diggory, Elphias Doge, Antonin Dolohov, Albus Dumbledore, Dudley Dursley, Marjorie (Marge) Dursley, Vernon Dursley, Marietta Edgecombe, Argus Filch, Seamus Finnigan, Marcus Flint, Mundungus Fletcher, Marvolo Gaunt, Merope Gaunt, Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger, Gregorovitch, Fenrir Greyback, Gellert Grindelwald, Rubeus Hagrid, Rolanda Hooch, Mafalda Hopkirk, Angelina Johnson, Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Alice Longbottom, Frank Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Xenophilius Lovegood, Remus Lupin, Draco Malfoy, Ernie Macmillan, Cormac McLaggen, Graham Montague, Theodore Nott, Bob Ogden, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil, Peter Pettigrew, Irma Pince, Lily Potter (née Evans), Quirinus Quirrell, Tom Marvolo Riddle – see Lord Voldemort*., Demelza Robins, Augustus Rookwood, Albert Runcorn, Newt Scamander, Rufus Scrimgeour, Stan Shunpike, Aurora Sinistra, Zacharias Smith, Alicia Spinnet, Pomona Sprout, Pius Thicknesse, Dean Thomas, Nymphadora Tonks, Travers, Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Percy Weasley, Oliver Wood

Bogrod, Buckbeak, Crookshanks, Dobby, Fawkes, Firenze, Fluffy, Grawp, Hedwig, Magorian, Great Aunt Muriel, Nagini, Norbert/Norberta, Ronan, Scabior, Travers, Trevor, Winky

* * *

ALIVE:

Ludo Bagman, Sirius Black, Regulus Arcturus Black, Terry Boot, Lavender Brown, Frank Bryce, Amycus Carrow, Penelope Clearwater, Michael Corner, Vincent Crabbe, Sr., Bartemius (Barty) Crouch, Jr., Roger Davies, Dawlish, Fleur Delacour, Mr. Delacour, Aberforth Dumbledore, Petunia Dursley (née Evans), Arabella Figg, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Filius Flitwick, Florean Fortescue, Cornelius Fudge, Morfin Gaunt, Anthony Goldstein, Goyle Sr, Gregory Goyle, Hermione Granger, Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, Lee Jordan, Bertha Jorkins, Igor Karkaroff, Viktor Krum, Silvanus Kettleburn, Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black), Gilderoy Lockhart, Augusta Longbottom, Neville Longbottom, Walden Macnair, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy (née Black), Madam Malkin, Griselda Marchbanks, Olympe Maxime, Minerva McGonagall, Alastor (Mad-Eye) Moody, Garrick Ollivander, Pansy Parkinson, Sturgis Podmore, Poppy Pomfrey, Harry Potter, James Potter, Thorfinn Rowle, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Rita Skeeter, Horace Slughorn, Severus Snape, Andromeda Tonks (née Black), Ted Tonks, Sybill Trelawney, Wilkie Twycross, Dolores Jane Umbridge, Emmeline Vance, Romilda Vane, Septima Vector, Lord Voldemort (Born Tom Riddle*), Myrtle Warren, Arthur Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Molly Weasley (née Prewett), Ron Weasley, Corban Yaxley, Blaise Zabini

Aragog, Bane, Errol, Fang, Gornuk, Griphook, Kreacher, Peeves, Pigwidgeon, Madam Rosmerta

* * *

Obviously, the alive/dead is only in respect to the Snap, so some characters may be irrelevant depending on the timeline chosen. The Snapped series is not timeline restricted; that is, I'll be writing as though the Snap occurred at different points in time for several of the stories.

Whew. Now that's all compiled, I find it highly amusing that the entire original trio survived. I was expecting at least one of them to disappear. We keep McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape, while losing Sprout. Draco's parents both survive, though he himself does not. Same with Nymphadora Tonks. Bellatrix is the last surviving Lestrange. Neville's parents both go, we lose all the older Weasley boys, and the Lovegoods are gone. The Ministry will have a bit of an upheaval, though Fudge and Umbridge both survive. :shudder:

*I rolled Voldemort as surviving before realizing that he'd already been rolled as dead under Tom Riddle. . . so his survival will vary. I'll probably just reroll him for each story.


	3. Snapped: Departures

**Snapped: Departures**

* * *

 _September 1, 1993_

The Hogwarts Express was late. No one noticed.

If you'd asked the third-year class, they'd have nigh-unanimously declared that Hermione Granger was the most observant and analytical student of their year - if anyone would notice things, one would expect it to be her.

Hermione had much different problems on her mind. One moment, she'd been chattering happily on, her parents a half-step behind on either side of her school trunk. She was just expounding on a particularly fascinating discovery from recent Wizarding history, turned to gesture excitedly, and found both her parents had vanished.

She might not have panicked, but that was when the screaming started.

* * *

Petunia Dursley, accompanying her completely normal family on the yearly trip to deliver her decidedly non-ordinary nephew to his decidedly abnormal school train, was a perfectly ordinary wife and mother.

Then she abruptly ceased being either of those things.

It doesn't matter how determined one is to be normal, when one's husband dissolves before one's eyes it tends to leave a considerable mark on one's psyche. She screamed. Harry Potter, her nephew, span round and drew his wand.

"M-mum?! Dudley asked, his blubbering voice clearly panicked as he too began to come apart. "What's ha-"

Vernon hadn't even had a chance to speak.

Petunia just stood there, shock and disbelief rooting her to the spot, as the last fragments of her son's existence disappeared into drifting ash.

Harry stared as well, holding tight to his wand. He looked around, instinctively searching for an enemy, and Petunia briefly wondered what sort of education they got at that freak school, before understanding hit her. This was real. This was real. Her husband, her son, had just vanished. And not the going-somewhere-with-magic type either, the something-freaky-happened kind.

The irreversible kind. Petunia sank to her knees, tears already slipping down her face as her stunned emotions reasserted themselves. And for once in her carefully-ordered life, she didn't care who saw.

* * *

Ron Weasley thought it was a joke.

Fred and George had just grabbed Percy by the arms, trying to convince him of something, when all three of them began wisping away. It was something Ron hadn't seen before, so he laughed.

"Nice effect," he said, grinning.

"What are you doing?" Percy demanded. "Unhand me, you should have more resp-"

Fred and George exchanged one brief, panicked look, and it was that speechlessness that would have convinced Ron that all was not right, had he not been distracted.

"Aw, did one of your stupid pranks go wrong?" Draco Malfoy just had to choose that moment to butt in. Ron turned to face him, and thus did not see as his three elder brothers vanished forever. He did see Draco beginning to fade, a slight frown crossing the richer boy's face as he realized something was wrong. "If you've contaminated me with your nasty Weasley garbage, you'll be hearing-" and then Draco was just gone.

Ron laughed, turning to his brothers. The laughter died as he saw nothing but ash. "Yeah, great prank and all," he said, a bit of unease slipping into his voice. "You can come back now. You got him good."

It was a long time before he truly realized that they weren't coming back.

* * *

There was more screaming outside the barrier than inside; though wizards dissolving into ash wasn't normal behavior, it wasn't as obviously bizarre an occurrence as it was in the Muggle station outside.

While Hermione stood with her trunk, stunned and confused, and Petunia quietly collapsed into tears, and Harry wondered awkwardly if he should be celebrating or trying to comfort his aunt, another family approached the barrier. Two young and enthusiastic children, one with a camera, the other tripping over his own feet in excitement, with their mother and father in tow. The parents were concerned by the commotion beginning to make itself heard, while the children remained oblivious. Colin saw Harry and waved cheerily.

"Harry! This is my brother, Dennis! He's not starting until next year, but he really wanted to meet you!"

The family followed Colin's lead and started toward Harry. None of the four reached him.

Harry hadn't quite grasped the weight of the situation. The muggles running and screaming could be a response to any number of wizardish things. Vernon and Dudley had never been his favourite people.

But watching the entire Creevey family vanish before him - walking toward him with smiles and eagerness one moment, gone completely the next - was the final crack. It shattered Harry's assumptions that everything was fine. He gasped and looked around, the chaos of the station becoming suddenly and vividly clear. His first thought was, _Sirius Black?_ followed by _Voldemort!_

He saw Hermione, standing quite still, and rushed over to her. "We have to get onto the platform, it's not safe out here," he said, Seeker instincts for motion and action and speed and no hesitation coming to the fore.

"Harry," she said, but her voice didn't sound like it usually did. It sounded as helpless and lost as any sound Harry had ever heard or could possibly have imagined. "Harry," she said again, more quietly, and grabbed him in a fierce, desperate hug. "They're gone," she whispered.

He permitted it a few moments, the two of them a quiet unmoving island amid the chaos, then he pulled back. "We have to get to safety," he said quietly. "Onto the platform. Someone will know what to do."

"I don't think there's anything we can do," Hermione said, her voice still sounding distant, empty and very unlike her.

Harry swallowed, remembering the repetitively moving photographs that were the only remnant of his own parents. "We have to try."

Hermione nodded, but he could see she didn't believe it would do any good. Honestly, he didn't either.

* * *

While there was less screaming and obvious panic inside Platform 9 3/4 than the muggle station outside, it was no less chaotic. Lucius Malfoy and his wife were having a very loud argument with Mrs. Weasley, who was alternately sobbing and shouting. Ron kept staring at the ground, waiting for a punchline that never materialized. Ginny clung to her mother.

The platform should have been crowded. It wasn't. Oh, there were dozens of witches and wizards, but nowhere near the press that should have been present. And everywhere Harry looked, lives were broken. Parents without their children - the Malfoys, Harry realized; Draco was nowhere to be seen. And for once he was not glad of it - or children without their parents.

Hermione still held his hand, clinging to him with an empty desperation that he supposed he would feel too if he'd had anyone to lose.

* * *

The train arrived at the platform at twenty-three past noon. Its usual conductor had vanished along with half the populace of the earth, and it had taken some time to locate where it had stopped even after finding a replacement driver on short notice. Not everyone was qualified to run the magical train, and quite frankly it was not the first thing on anyone's mind.

Had not Minerva McGonagall insisted that bringing the students to Hogwarts immediately would be safest for them all, it might not have been noticed for days.

Their Defence professor, who'd been planning to take the train with the students, never arrived. That was another blow, but only slight. Albus Dumbledore was gone. Pomona Sprout, head of Hufflepuff house, was gone.

Hogwarts itself had proved no protection, regardless of the charms and enchantments protecting it. This was no act of magic, it was a power beyond. One that ignored shields rather than ripping through them.

It was bloody terrifying.

Due to the magic built into the Hogwarts Express, the train ride took exactly as long as necessary to reach Hogsmeade Station at its scheduled arrival time. It technically needn't have departed for hours yet, but it was a long-respected Hogwarts tradition that students spend the first of the month riding to their new school. Whatever else may have changed, Minerva did not intend to cause any more disruptions to normalcy than necessary.

The rest of the world may be descending into utter chaos, but Hogwarts would remain as it had ever remained, a rock of learning and tradition around which the ripples of the world would flow. The chaos did mean that they must make due with such staff as they had for the time being, which necessitated her other announcement, however much it pained her.

Two prefects could not run an entire House, even at its reduced occupancy. Both sixth years, going into their NEWT years. No, it would not do to make them responsible for the entire house, decrease in size notwithstanding.

She took a deep, calming breath, then stood and crossed to the podium.

"Welcome, Hogwarts students." Her voice shook almost imperceptibly as the image of Albus Dumbledore, who by all rights _should_ have been standing here, flashed through her mind. She'd known for years that she would one day take over the school, when he had to attend to other matters or finally retired, but never had she anticipated it being thrust upon her so suddenly. So tragically.

"It is with the deepest sadness that I must announce some major changes to this year's teaching arrangements. Due to this morning's tragic. . . events, several of our classes will be combined or postponed. Details will be added to your timetables, which I will distribute in the morning. In short, Astronomy classes will be covered by Septima Vector as well as her Arithmancy, and the frequency of each will be decreased. Severus Snape will be filling in as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher as well as covering his usual Potions, and these will be less frequent as well."

She hesitated, half expecting a raucous cheer from the Weasley contingent at the Griffindor table at the thought of fewer Potions lessons, but a glance showed only two of the five sitting there. Minerva's heart broke a little more. She had been scrambling to fill in staff positions with anyone available, and had yet to receive the complete student casualty lists. She carefully did not think about it, but it looked like the tables were roughly half their usual size.

"And. . . there is one other major change. It is with the utmost regret that I must announce the _temporary_ dissolvance of House Hufflepuff. Until such time as we can locate a new Head of House, you will each choose another house to integrate with in the interim. Please discuss among yourselves how best to divide up, I would prefer an even distribution between the three remaining houses. Silvanis Kettleburn will be covering Herbology lessons as well as his usual Care of Magical Creatures elective. Thank you."

She seated herself, amid the quiet whispers of a dissolved House, and the feast appeared in all its usual glory.

She doubted she would be the only one with no appetite for it.

* * *

Neville Longbottom didn't say anything. He sat at his usual seat near Harry, Ron, and Hermione but not quite with them - and stared down at the simple piece of parchment his grandmother's owl had delivered.

 _I'm terribly sorry_ , it read, the words even less clear than usual. _Be strong, Neville_.

The second page was a form letter, obviously copied out in haste, which informed the appropriate family members that Frank and Alice Longbottom had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away that morning.

Neville had known they weren't coming back, that their condition was irreversible, but they'd been _alive_. There was still hope. And love, however disguised beneath madness. Now, there was nothing. Only himself and his grandmother. He knew he should be grateful that she had survived, but he couldn't even begin to conjure up the positive energy it would require.

He could only stare, rereading those terrible, cold, empty words. And again, and again.

* * *

Harry had known the moment Snape had called out, "First years, follow me this way," instead of the familiar accented boom of Hagrid's usual call. He hadn't wanted to accept it. He resolutely ignored the knowledge, insisting to himself that Hagrid was merely busy preparing for another year. That he'd perhaps fallen ill, or hatched another three-headed dog, or- _something_.

He waited until the first two classes of the day were over, when everyone was dismissed to lunch, and ran out to Hagrid's hut instead. Fang saw him coming and set to howling. No one told the dog to be quiet, which was a very bad sign. Harry's heart sank another few steps.

Hogwarts wouldn't be the same without Hagrid, just as it wouldn't be the same without Professor Dumbledore, or without Fred and George and Percy. Harry shivered, though the air wasn't chilled. He pressed on anyway, crossing to Hagrid's hut. Fang barked and scratched at the door. Harry knocked, straining for any sound of Hagrid's familiar voice telling Fang off, any thud of his footsteps or clatter of his pots to indicate he was cooking something inedible.

There was nothing but Fang, barking and whimpering, and Harry pounded louder on the door as though sheer stubborness could force Hagrid to come and open it.

He didn't realize he was crying.

"Come away, Mr. Potter," said a quiet male voice behind him. "He's gone. It's no use knocking."

"Why?" Harry asked, emotion making it both louder and fainter than usual. He scrubbed his face on his sleeves, trying to regain his composure. "What happened?"

"No one knows. It doesn't seem to have been targeted at anyone specifically. Whatever it was it occurred globally over the course of ten minutes, and nothing since."

Harry turned around, surprised by the honesty. He wasn't used to being informed of things so unhesitatingly. The man behind him wasn't one he recognized. Dark-haired, with a neat beard and haunted eyes.

"Who are you?"

"A survivor of your parents' war," the man replied. "I fought Voldemort for years, right up to the day you stopped him. And I came here today to right a great wrong, only to find that fate took care of things for me." He chuckled darkly. "If there is one good thing about this all, at least your parents are avenged, though I could wish it had been by my hand."

"But who are you?" Harry asked. He had photographs of several of his parents' friends, and couldn't place the stranger in any of them.

He smiled, but it was a forced kind of expression. Harry thought it looked as though he wanted to smile but had forgotten how to infuse it with any warmth.

"My friends called me Padfoot," he said. "It wouldn't be safe to mention my full name, but I can promise you, Harry. Now that my previous goals are fulfilled, I only want to help and protect you in any way I can."

"Me specifically?" Harry asked.

"You specifically," Padfoot repeated. "I've respected your family since I was young, and from what I saw this summer you aren't exactly. . . well-loved. You deserve better."

Harry regarded him silently for a long moment. Fang howled, and Hagrid did not appear.

"You were watching me this summer?" he asked, quietly.

"I wanted to be sure you were safe. And I wasn't. . . well-off then. I couldn't have approached you, it would have turned out badly for everyone. The only reason I'm here now is because of the. . ." he waved his hand in a helpless sort of gesture, that reminded Harry sickeningly of how Dudley had looked as he disappeared.

"I never wanted them dead," Harry said, feeling oddly choked. "We didn't get along well, but they were still family. I never. . ."

"I understand completely. I once had a brother." Padfoot's voice sank to almost a whisper. "It didn't end well. But I never would have wished it on him."

Harry nodded, fighting tears and nausea. He had left Aunt Petunia alone in the station, hadn't even considered her feelings. He hoped she'd gotten home safely, then wondered what she'd _do_ once she got there. Wondered what was happening to society in general, for that matter. Inside Hogwarts things were traumatic enough, but at least it was an enclosed environment that could be controlled. The world in general wasn't so contained, nor so well controlled.

"What's it like, out there?" Harry asked quietly.

Padfoot shook his head. "It's absolute chaos. People are angry, hurt, broken. For each person ranting about the apocalypse, there's a dozen more who choose to die rather than face it. Early numbers indicate we may have lost half the population in the event itself, but we're going to lose a whole lot more before this is over."

"Will we survive?" Harry asked.

"You and I, absolutely. Wizards as a whole, certainly. There's enough redundancy built into the Ministry that they'll be back up and running in no time. We survived Grindelwald, we survived Voldemort, and we'll survive this. You'll see."

"But everyone else? All the muggles?"

Padfoot sighed. "I don't know, Harry. Some extremely important people are gone now, and it's going to take time for things to settle. Wizards have the advantage of a close-knit community, one that's already weathered one period of terrible loss, one where we know we can rely on each other. The muggles. . . they're more fragmented. And I really don't know enough about them to guess."

Fang's howling had slowed to an occasional bark, seemingly resigned to his loneliness.

"Don't worry about him," Padfoot said as Harry glanced guiltily toward the door. "I'll take care of him. And you should get to lunch."

"I'm not hungry," Harry said, sure he wouldn't be able to eat. He had barely touched his food since this whole mess began.

"You should at least try. Take care of yourself, Harry. And I'll see you again soon."

Harry nodded dully and turned to trudge back up to the castle. By the time he thought to look back, Hagrid's door stood open and both Fang and the stranger were gone.

* * *

 _Author's Notes_ :

 _Well, that went on longer than I'd anticipated. It could probably be expanded nigh-indefinitely from there, but I'm relatively satisfied with it as-is. There's obviously a lot of tragedy and sadness, but also the potential of hope. I've changed things around a bit from canon '93 for the purpose of this story. Does that make it AU? Not sure. Where do the AU lines lay, and by what measure are they wrought?_


	4. Snapped: Awakening

_Author's Note : _

_This is an alternate timeline from the previous Snapped entry. Each story in the Snapped series is based upon the same premise and use the same survival table (see character list if interested, about two chapters back) but have the Snap occur at various points throughout time._

* * *

 **Snapped: Awakening**

* * *

 _January 17, 1987_

It was hard to think for himself. It occurred only rarely, brief flickers between warm apathy that normally surrounded and smothered him. He lived for those moments, though they never brought him any measure of peace and only made his life more intolerable.

Never for long. He was neither happy nor unhappy, not rebellious nor obedient. For obedience requires will, and enforced actions have no inherent nature. He could hardly have been called a person at all, given most standard definitions. When one does nothing but what one is told, when one drifts through day after day in a haze of unconcern, nothing has any meaning.

Time was meaningless. Existence was meaningless. Death was meaningless. Survival, meaningless.

He lived for the tiny flickers of time when he remembered himself, when he could imagine for just the briefest moment that there could be a future.

Mostly he dreamed. He dreamed of a home, quiet and stilted. He dreamed of meals taken alone or with his father in cold silence. He dreamed of outings, brief interludes of calm amid an ocean of apathy, of trees and fields and lakes. He dreamed of his mother, dead and gone. He dreamed of his father, cool and distant.

He dreamed of his master, quietly whispering commands that he could never quite understand or remember.

Three months passed, (or was it ten years, or a week?) but he didn't mind, didn't care. He dreamed of blueberries on biscuits, and a quiet 'Happy Birthday' whispered in grudging tones, and he had dreamed of this before. It had been different foods, but the same words. Twice, or six times perhaps? He couldn't remember how often he'd dreamed of this day.

More days passed, and he dreamed of halls and warmth locked in against winter chill. He dreamed of snow and ice, and that too he had dreamed before.

His master was patient, but one as great as he could only afford so much time. He began to worry, in his brief flashes of lucidity, if there was nothing that could be done.

Planning proved impossible. So much time passed between moments, he spent so much time dreaming instead of living. He could resent it, momentarily, but he hadn't the time nor mental fortitude to do more. Plans were out of the question entirely. He was held, bound by power too great for him to resist, and nothing he could do would break those bonds.

Something else broke them for him.

One day, one quiet winter day, the world was broken in two. And his prison split open, leaving him gasping and shivering, dying and alive for the first time since his master's fall.

"My father is dead," he said aloud, and found it to be true. His voice rasped weakly, unaccustomed to such use, but he needed no voice to conjure his wand to him from wherever his father had hidden it, and though he had dreamed for a long time he had not forgotten his skill or his power.

He ran his hand along the wand, not quite touching, letting the static-like discharges of magic jump between the wood and his skin. For a time he sat, eyes half closed, as he allowed his dreams to fade and reveled in the sharp reality of power and possibility.

It was hard, to think for himself. Habits were ingrained within him now, habits of silence, of passivity, of inaction. He was to wait, stay out of sight, and perform such minor tasks as were necessary to keep the house running. The elf was his sole companion, and she knew to manage him calmly and direct his actions.

Where was she? Shouldn't she have arrived the moment his father died? He would be her only master now. But she didn't appear, and so he put her out of his mind.

Though he retained instinct and knowledge, his mind was slow to comprehend and accept its new freedom. Part of him missed the calm and quiet to which he'd become so accustomed, while the hidden spark that had raged silently all those years lifted its head and began to kindle into greater heat.

He sat, magic suffusing him, sparks of blue-green power jumping between his dancing fingers and the patient wand beneath.

Slowly, the dreams coalesced into memory. Faint and fragmented, as he'd had little reason to retain it, but beneath all the quiet imposed upon him there remained a whisper. A whisper he knew, revered, and would never refuse.

His master wanted him. Had been calling him for months, _years_ , while he languished here.

That thought was enough to galvanize him into action. He stood, legs untrembling, and lifted his wand. Only a few had been told this secret, this power meant for use only in the last extremis.

" _Morsmordre_ ," he called, twisting his wand to direct at his own arm. Pain flared like fire, but he only laughed wildly. It had been so long, so so long, since he'd _felt_.

And he knew where he had to go.

"I'm coming, master," he shrieked. Laughing madly, he turned on the spot and disapparated.

The crack of his departure echoed once, dully, then the house lay empty and still.

It would remain so for a very long time.

* * *

 _Minor edits on 10-07-18: fixed a few typos and removed a repeated sentence._


	5. Snapped: Fractions

_Author's Note : _

_This is probably the last entry for Snapped. Departures covered most of it, and Awakening and Fractions are the only ones that I felt needed their own individual attention._

 _2019-09-17 : I've decided to move this particular story and its sequels to AO3. I use the same username there, Asviloka, and the alternate version will be similar but not exactly identical to this version. The next chapter serves as a rough outline, but I feel this version of the story deserves a bit more detail. I will not delete or remove the current version of them, for historical and personal reasons, but the most up-to-date version will be over on AO3._

* * *

 **Snapped: Fractions**

* * *

 _July 31, 1981_

They were on the run, but still found time to hold a tiny birthday party for their son. Harry got a cake, though no presents, and a single candle.

Lily sat beside their son as he stared at the flickering, tiny flame, trying to explain to him the concept of blowing it out for good luck. James knew he wasn't helping, grinning and giving Harry contradictory information. But it was too rare these days that they had time for fun, so he would get as much out of it as he could.

Harry sputtered and giggled, the flame dancing away from him but not quite going out. Lily laughed, delighted.

James grinned. "You're blowing too hard, try it really gently and just. . ." he breathed out slowly, then winked at Harry.

Harry tried to imitate his father, and James dissolved into laughter as his breath only made the flame flicker again.

"How about we do it together?" Lily suggested, scooting closer. "On three. One. . . Two. . . Three!"

Harry puffed out his cheeks and blew as hard as he could, and Lily gently puffed on the tiny flame. The candle went out. They all clapped, Harry joining in enthusiastically while James leaned over to cut the cake.

"I'll have you know," James said conspiratorially, "cutting this into thirds isn't as easy as it looks." It was a small cake, but the pieces would be plenty big enough to go around.

Ash drifted across his vision, and James chuckled. "That's a lot of smoke for one little candle," he commented, turning to Lily. "Did Sirius give it—"

Lily's chair was empty, but for a thin pile of ash that dissolved into nothing even as he watched.

He froze, then his fighting instincts kicked in. He had his wand in his hand before he even thought of it, gaze darting around the room for every possible place of concealment, every possible angle of attack. The window blinds and curtains were drawn. The doors were closed.

Harry continued clapping and giggling, a discordant note in James's suddenly empty world. He felt it, then, the ache in his chest, the soul-deep certainty that she wasn't just in the other room or hiding in a closet, she was _gone_.

"No." The sound came out as a choked sob, even as James kept his body between the window and Harry, even as he turned and began casting detection and protection spells.

Harry fell silent, turning to his father uncertainly, and he immediately caught James's fear. He ducked down, going quiet and still like they'd practiced, but James didn't have the presence of mind to praise him this time.

He found nothing. No one. Their attackers had disappeared as completely as Lily. _Lily!_

"We're leaving," he told Harry, and scooped him out of his high chair. " _Accio_ bag."

He slipped the straps over his free arm, then shifted Harry to that side to leave his wand arm free.

Harry clung to him. "Muma?" he asked quietly.

James's heart broke a little more. "She won't be coming this time," he whispered. "Hold tight."

He spun and disapparated, leaving the apartment decorated for a party, with a half-cut cake and a half-burned candle.

Leaving behind half of himself that would never be regained.


	6. Fractions: Rebuild

_Author's Note : This is a direct continuation of [Snapped] Fractions, in which the Snap occurs on Harry's birthday in 1981. I've not decided how long it will go, so each part should be considered potentially the last.  
_

* * *

The war ended that night. The larger chaos consumed it, the world shifting itself around to fill in the holes left by half the world vanishing in an afternoon.

Voldemort disappeared, along with half his Death Eaters.

Along with half of everyone else.

The magical world was used to chaos. Voldemort and Grindelwald before him had seen to that. They mourned and consolidated quickly, moving even further into secrecy away from the muggles and their chaos.

The muggles were hit hardest. Planes without pilots crashing down, or with untrained passengers desperately trying to land, caused swaths of destruction all around the world. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties on highways; with over a third of the cars rushing along unguided, roads became a solid string of pileups.

But everyone moves on.

In the muggle world, a year after the disaster things had settled. After the initial rush of additional deaths and looting and madness, enough calm was restored. Three years, and factories had resumed work, the most important roads were clear, and everything seemed almost normal. Five years, and life had resumed its ordinary flow. Deeply scarred, both the physical spaces and the hearts of those who survived, but alive.

Society rebuilt itself, reborn like a phoenix. Weak and struggling but growing stronger year by year.

Ironically, in this, the wizarding world had the harder task. Where the muggles had hundreds of millions to fill in their empty spaces, the wizards had thousands. Already divided and devastated by the war, unwilling to just accept what had happened, with half the Ministry's leadership gone in the same day as Voldemort and Dumbledore both.

Hundreds of witches and wizards came out of Imperius trances, their confusion only adding to the general chaos. A very few Death Eater fanatics like Bellatrix Lestrange continued their attacks, but without Lord Voldemort's backing they were almost overlooked amid everything else and quietly hunted down by surviving Order members.

The refugees who'd fled the country didn't feel safe enough to return. Individual pockets of survivors locked themselves down under heavy protections and became tiny communities reverting to survival and leaving society to its own devices. Ottery St Catchpole, Godric's Hollow, Spinner's End - almost every surviving wizard settlement became its own entity. Its own tiny island of survivors, supporting one another and blocking the rest of the world out.

* * *

The Ministry elections were fraught with havoc, but even there the turnout underperformed even the most skeptical predictions. Lucius Malfoy took the position with hardly a contest, and set about creating a new and firmer central core to the wizarding world.

They were inextricably linked to muggle London, with the Ministry there and Diagon Alley still one of the biggest shopping districts in wizarding Britain. With half the muggles missing, it was easy to carve out a section of the city for magicals. The survivors were already in chaos, making a few hundred forget their home address and find places elsewhere in the city didn't bother Lucius in the least.

Expanding Diagon Alley to include the muggle shopping district in which it was located, rerouting the Ministry entrances and exits to the new center of magical power, and building anti-muggle charms into the streets on either end occupied everyone who could be hired.

Give them something useful to do, time to calm down, and a firm voice of authority. The new Remembrance Plaza renovations continued. Each time they completed one task, Lucius - or Narcissa, who headed up the team - had another lined up.

* * *

The splintered communities remained apart. They didn't know or care what was going on in the city; they had their own problems, their own triumphs, their own tiny battles to face day by day.

Molly Weasley, only weeks away from giving birth to her first daughter, lost five of her six sons. Ron went from _youngest_ to _only_ in the space of a minute.

The entire Lovegood family vanished, as the Weasleys learned when Mary and Alexander Vellacott - Pandora's parents - came knocking on their door, asking frantically if they had the correct address. Xenophilius, Pandora, and their six-month-old Luna; gone. As was Xenophilius's ailing mother. And Pandora's brother, Leander, along with his wife and his two-year-old son.

The Vellacotts stayed. At first, because Mary was an accomplished healer and wanted to ensure Molly's pregnancy wasn't adversely affected in its final weeks, but soon because both families had lost too much and it was better to support one another. They'd been living with Leander's family when the disaster occurred, and now they moved into the empty Rookery.

Mary acted as healer for the scattered wizarding families in the area. Martha Diggory, already in fragile health, took a turn for the worst with the disappearance of her husband and only son. Though once she'd have been sent to St. Mungo's, now they were understaffed and oversaturated, so Mary moved her into the Rookery and tried to coax her back to good health.

Further down the road, the Fawcett family didn't even realize anything was wrong at first. Of everyone in Ottery St. Catchpole, their family alone survived untouched.

They did not take this for granted very long. As everyone around them struggled to regain their equilibrium, the Fawcetts proved themselves a solid support for the entire community. They took charge of organizing protective spells, of resource allocation. They headed up the consolidation of split families, pairing lost children with grieving parents.

No one could replace those that were lost, but in helping others they could find a way forward beyond their own grief. Not to say that it was easy. But time softens pain, even if it can never fully erase it.

The little town came together to rebuild and move on.

Life went on.

* * *

James Potter and Sirius Black loved Harry more than anything in the world.

It hadn't been easy, moving on from losing Lily, but his truest friend and practically-brother had stepped up in a big way. That first year, both James and Sirius had been forced to mature faster and in more ways than they'd ever imagined possible.

James still missed Lily. Every morning when he woke, alone or with Harry beside him. Every time Harry did something for the first time, every birthday that passed without her. Those were the hardest. Sirius usually took point on Harry's birthdays, arranging trips and celebrations to take place outside of the house, but even that had to be done carefully. James wasn't the only person who lost someone that day, not by a long shot, and Harry had the misfortune of a celebratory day which would be forever marred by loss.

They made up for it at Christmases, at Halloween, at every holiday they could turn into a celebration.

Their day of remembrance was September first. In memory of the two of their four who could no longer come around to visit, they took Harry to the pillar monument at the center of Remembrance Plaza, showed him the name of two more honorary uncles he could hardly remember. Showed him the name of his mother.

They didn't tell him why they were the only ones, because he was too young for them to explain the full circumstances around his birthday without it tainting his own enjoyment of it. And they wanted, so desperately, for Harry to be happy.

James gradually repainted the entire house, inside and out. He rearranged the rooms, transfigured the furniture, and did everything he could to hide the memory of that one day.

He continued on with the Aurors, while Sirius worked evenings part-time at Cauldron Corner, a specialty shop whose owners had vanished. Their daughter carried on the business, expanding into a few other niche markets as the economic upheaval settled, and that's where Sirius came in.

Neither Sirius or James earned a lot, but together they earned enough.

James taught Harry to fly. Sirius taught Harry to wink with either eye without squinting the other. James learned to cook. Sirius mastered housekeeping spells.

That's not to say they never disagreed.

The first months were fraught. They were too young, too unprepared for it to be a smooth transition. Under a _muffliato_ to avoid waking Harry, they stood in the front room and argued until they were both shouting.

"You're not his mum!"

"Then stop acting as though I am! I know I'm not Lily, you're the one who keeps expecting too much from me!"

"I thought you wanted to be part of this family, but if you want to go back to the Blacks, be my guest!"

They were both grieving, and they both knew it, but hurtful things are still hurtful whatever the other is feeling. They were both sorry, afterward; and ashamed. But they were so tired and there was always twice as much to get done as anyone had time for, and that was just in their little household.

It wasn't the first argument that got out of hand, nor would it be the last.

But time settles things, and after a few months of wearing at each others' last nerves, they reached an equilibrium. With enough rest, with the world no longer quite as chaotic, with time and distance from the sharp immediacy of loss, they found themselves again.

And time passed.

Until everything changed again.

Those five years of sorrow and loss, and rebuilding and peace, came to an abrupt and final end.

* * *

 _Author's Note : _

_Thank you so much everyone! I can't tell you how much your support means to me._

 _I know, I said Snapped was over. And it is. But after watching Endgame [potential, minor spoilers in the next chapter, btw, if you care] I wanted to continue this particular version of it. It'll be a decidedly different tone to the other Snapped stories, taking place post-timeskip for the most part. So, Fractions._


	7. Fractions: Return

On July 31, 1981, the three-year-old Weasley twins had been wrestling in the garden while Molly tended to her dittany patch. Percy, five years old, sat trying to figure out which letter was a b and which a d, while ostensibly watching baby Ron in his cot. Ron, being asleep, needed little watching. Bill and Charlie were running around the back yard, throwing a Muggle ball that wasn't quite the right shape to be a quaffle.

On August 1, 1981, the Weasley family consisted of Molly, Arthur, and Ron. It was a much quieter home, but not nearly as happy.

On September 1, 1986, none of their children were old enough to attend Hogwarts yet, though had things gone differently they'd have been sending off two of them. Ron was six, Ginny five, and little Mary almost two.

On September 18, 1986, a sudden outcry from the garden startled Molly from a light doze in her sitting room chair. It was raining, so it took her a moment to make out the forms racing toward the house.

She nearly swooned when she recognized them.

Bill and Charlie barreled in first, and promptly tripped over the sofa before collapsing in a dripping mess all over her sitting room rug. She stared at them, as confused as they. They gaped at the house, so much changed by the years they were gone, while she stared uncomprehending at her eldest children, so utterly unchanged by their years away.

"Bill? Charlie?" Her voice came out faint, trembling. She hardly dared to hope. Maybe she had finally lost her mind completely.

"That came out of _nowhere_ ," Charlie said, laughing and wringing water out of his shirt. Molly didn't scold him for dripping on her rug. She just grabbed him, grabbed Bill, hugged them tightly enough that they gasped for air and struggled to escape.

"What's wrong, mum?" Bill asked, more perceptive to the changes. "Why's everything different?"

"Five years," Molly managed through her tears. "It's been five years."

The two boys exchanged glances. "That explains the ball," Charlie said. "I _was_ going to catch it, you know."

"It would have bounced right off your thick head," Bill retorted.

Then Fred and George started banging on the door, soaked and muddy and laughing, and Molly brought them in and picked them up and couldn't stop laughing and crying and laughing so much she could hardly catch her breath.

Back in the dining room, Ginny sat staring at the newcomer. Percy, for his part, stood staring at the stranger. "Where's Ron?" he asked, looking around. There was no Ron, no empty cot even.

"Who are you?" Ginny demanded.

"Percy. Who are _you_?"

"Ginny."

They stared at each other, two five-year-olds unsure of each other.

"You look like Ron," Ginny finally said.

"I do not!"

Ginny nodded. "Do too."

Ron came charging downstairs, having heard his name, but stopped short at the sight of the newcomer.

"Who're you?" he demanded, moving to stand protectively beside Ginny.

"Percy," Percy repeated. "And who're you?"

"Ron."

Percy coughed and snorted. "I think I'd recognize my own little brother."

"I'm the oldest," Ron said defiantly.

"He is," Ginny piped in. "Mary and I are both younger. He's six!"

Percy gaped, then turned and fled. He thought he'd heard Mum's voice and Charlie's from the front room.

Fred and George were poking each other behind Mum's back, while she held them and Bill and Charlie like she'd just remembered how. But she dropped them when she saw him enter, rushing over to grab him up into her arms.

"And Percy too! It's a miracle!"

He squirmed, uncomfortable. Bad enough being held, but she was _crying_ all over him too. "Lemme go, I'm not a baby."

"Yes you are, you're all, all my babies. And you're all _back_."

She didn't care how. She didn't care why. They were all here again, and that was all that mattered. Then she suddenly remembered Arthur. He didn't know.

The patronus came without effort, springing into life and rushing off the moment she touched her wand. No memory in the world could be more powerful than the moment she lived inside right then.

* * *

Lily fell to the floor, the chair no longer in its customary position, laughter dying as she took in the changes at a glance.

This wasn't her home. She'd been transported somewhere else without her consent.

She leapt to her feet, wand in hand, ready to fight. She stood silently, waiting, listening. Light rain was falling outside, pattering softly against the windows.

"Ready or not, here I come!"

It was a child's voice, bright and unafraid. The sound broke Lily's battle-ready concentration, threw her off-kilter.

She turned, just in time to see a dark-haired boy scamper into the room. He looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't have time to try and place him.

He stopped when he saw her, mouth open, unsure what to say.

"Hi," she said, crouching down and keeping her voice light. "Could you tell me where I am? I think I'm lost."

"Uhhh. . . DAD!" He looked around, smiling at something behind her. Lily turned.

Sirius looked worn, tired, older. He was dressed respectably, had a neatly-trimmed beard, and stared at her as though she were an inferius.

"Lily," he choked out, then raised his voice. "JAMES!"

With a crack, James apparated beside Sirius, mouth already open to ask,

"What is— it."

He stared at her, looking as tired and worn as Sirius, but she didn't have time to wonder if he were an impostor. He leapt forward, and then he was hugging her, holding her as though he would never let go.

"You're alive. You're alive! Thank God, thank _God_!"

She narrowed her eyes at Sirius over James's shoulder. "There had better be a good explanation for this."

"You were gone for five years," Sirius said, his voice still faint.

"That's ridiculous. Gone where?"

Sirius shrugged. "You, and half the population of the world." Then he blanched, going pale so fast Lily stiffened in concern. "Voldemort," Sirius whispered. "He was gone. Is he back? Or is it just you?"

She felt James tense, clutching her tighter.

"It doesn't matter," he said at last. "We fought him before, we can fight him again."

"We were ready, before. We knew what was out there." Sirius collapsed onto the sofa, and the boy scrambled up onto his lap.

Lily suddenly put the pieces together. Tears sprang to her eyes. "That's Harry?" she whispered, her chest suddenly tight with emotion. "He grew up without me."

"But you're here now." James finally stepped back, but kept his hands on her shoulders, looking at her with so much love and joy that she couldn't help leaning up to kiss him.

Sirius covered Harry's eyes.

When they finally broke apart, Lily gave a determined nod. "I'm here now."

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _The finale to the Fractions trilogy._

 _I've decided to expand upon this version a bit more, but still in this oneshot style, and expanding to cover more characters. As such, I've decided the best place to host it in its new form is on AO3. I will not be removing or altering the version here, but the time in between Fractions I and Return will be expanded upon more fully. Part two in particular is currently very 'describe five years worth of changes to society in a few hundred words' tell-y at present, and I'd like to more clearly define it in non-summary form._

 _I use the same username, Asviloka. Fractions will be my first story there. It's something of a test case, as I try to accustom myself to the platform. If it works out I may crosspost all my oneshots and shorter works there, since the more robust tagging and collection system works well for shorter pieces. Then again, it's currently confusing me to no end, and I may end up giving up in frustration. We'll see. For now, Fractions is my test story and any new content in this universe will go there._


	8. Who are you?

_Prompt by u/fiachra12 on r/HPfanfiction_  
 _The typical Grey Independent Harry Potter-Black comes back to Hogwarts a changed man. So much so that people start to wonder if he's an imposter like Mad-Eye the year before._

* * *

 _ **Who are you and what have you done with Harry Potter?**_

* * *

It was the summer of 1996 that Harry Potter decided he'd had enough. After an entire year of things going from terrible to even worse, after more heartbreak and loss than he'd ever believed one person could bear and still be alive, he took a good long look at himself and decided he no longer liked who he was.

He'd let Sirius die. He'd let Hermione and Ron and Ginny and Neville and Luna follow him into danger. He'd been helpless before Voldemort, needed Dumbledore to save him.

He'd been good. He'd been merciful. He'd been noble.

And Voldemort was right. That had been nothing but weakness.

Harry's newfound position of power with the Dursleys allowed him an unprecedented level of freedom. They were terrified to cross Moody, so basically took to pretending Harry didn't exist and never trying to deny him anything. He made sure to capitalize on this attitude, having all too much experience with their relapses at the slightest provocation.

Dudley spent as much time as possible far away from Harry, Vernon spent more evenings at work than ever before, and Petunia's social life suddenly developed to the point where she actually left the house for hours each evening for 'events' of increasingly unclear nature at the homes of various gossipy women of her dubious acquaintance.

Harry didn't care what they did so long as they left him alone, and thus the summer passed with the least amount of Dursley-related drama on record. With a welcome absence of Voldemort in his head, his summer was off to a perfect start.

Harry didn't waste his freedom. He spent hours composing letters to every shop in Diagon Alley that remained open - a surprising number of shopowners had simply packed up and fled the country at the first official news of Voldemort's return, along with nearly a third of the lower-middle class who could afford to do so. Several dozen purchases later, once his inquiries for further material were met with negative answers, he turned to anyone else he could find.

He spent one harrowing afternoon collecting names and addresses along Knockturn Alley, and even braved the confusing depths of Fine Alley (which turned out to contain nothing fine at all, and a great many desperate criminals. If not for his impressive skill with the disarming charm, he suspected he'd not have survived.)

Armed with this information, he continued his mail-order search, expanding yet again as the black-market sellers balked to deal with The Harry Potter. And a great many of those who did sell to him - at exorbitant prices - then promptly joined their above-board peers in fleeing the country.

This last expansion proved the most fruitful. In looking beyond humans to the underworld of vampires, werewolves, and hags, he encountered at last what he'd been so circumspectly pursuing this whole time: true, Dark Magic. The kind of power it would take to face Voldemort head on and win.

Moody - or false-Moody at least - had shown them the Unforgivables. But as Harry had discovered to his detriment, the mere words were insufficient with these darkest of curses.

He did not manage to purchase anything about the Unforgiveables through the Gringotts-brokered Dark Creatures Alliance mail order service; that would be a bridge too far even for a vampire. But he did obtain the next best thing. Manuals, spellbooks, and primitive-bound collections of notes so ancient they were not forbidden for the simple fact that no one remembered their existence any longer.

Dudley walked by, having just woken from a morning nap on the sofa, as Harry accepted one of these books. The mere aura of evil pouring from the volume was sufficient that the older boy swooned on the spot, sending Aunt Petunia into a fit.

Harry grinned at her, gave Dudley a sharp prod to wake him up, and shrugged in a 'no big deal, he's fine' kind of way as he carried his Dark manual upstairs to his room.

* * *

Where ordinarily summer dragged on eternally until he could return to Hogwarts, this summer passed in a blur of studying and experimentation. He couldn't cast spells without bringing the wrath of the ministry down on him, but he could perform rituals. They required no wand magic, being a deeper and darker power. Every newer book warned that, since not amplified by a wand, these spells would be of lesser power than their newer counterparts.

Modern magic was so far from the peak mentioned in the rare, 'uninteresting' books Harry had been sold, he found it absurd. In Grindelwald's era, students Harry's age were already adept at wordlessly casting spells Harry had never even heard of.

The first war with Voldemort had done more damage to the wizarding world than anyone had realized. With a general drive toward more regulations and restrictions on how and where magic could be used, he saw that Umbridge was merely the latest in a long line of those seeking to weaken future generations through ignorant cowardice.

Whether for fear of future Dark Lords, or to prevent someone like Albus Dumbledore accruing the amount of personal power - however well utilized - over them again, the ministry had slowly and systematically crippled modern wizardry. And in doing so, sabotaged themselves.

Harry's 'weak' rituals were far beyond the strength of even NEWT-level students. They were time-consuming, completely impractical for combat use, but of undeniable utility when attempting to make oneself stronger.

He had one more year left of protection at Privet Drive, one more year in which to prepare. Harry had no doubt that Voldemort would appear before him to finish their prophesied conflict the moment the blood enchantment of his mother's protection fell.

He had to be ready by then, and nothing else mattered.

His vault, once so unimaginable in its riches, soon felt utterly insufficient. Ancient and Dark magic didn't come cheap.

Harry paid without hesitation.

One of his cheapest purchases was a recently-vacated flat in Knockturn Alley, where he set up any ritual circles which were too big to fit in his bedroom or the Dursleys' sitting room. He didn't dare visit often, always under disillusionment lest the Death Eaters find him, but made sure his trips were productive.

By the end of July, Harry had enough enchantments layered upon his person that he could have stood in front of a freight train without fear of injury. By the second week of August, he'd created a complex illusionary world wherein he could perfectly test any spell without actually casting it.

By the end of June, he'd perfected time travel. Not the first June, naturally; it took him until August 26th, and only transported him back a maximum of two months.

The ingredients required by the ritual for reversing time cost more than everything else put together. Harry didn't hesitate. After all, he'd get everything back in the past, and no one would be the wiser.

* * *

He intercepted his past self on his first trip into Knockturn Alley, lurking down Fine Alley until the opportune moment. He vaguely remembered being accosted by a madman the first time around, but not until he found himself disarmed and stunned did he realize his redo-the-past-month plan wouldn't be as simple as he'd anticipated. But perhaps it was better this way. He didn't want to be erased in a time paradox.

Not one to give up, he made an in-person visit to Gringotts and did a lot more haggling than he'd anticipated before finally collecting his inheritance from Sirius, and being put in contact with the Dark Creatures Alliance. This time, it turned out that they _did_ happen to have a single book on the Unforgiveable Curses.

Harry smiled and purchased it, asking for their full catalogue to be made available for him to peruse at his leisure. They agreed, and his past self continued to accrue the necessary books and materials.

Harry rented a second flat adjacent to his old (future) one, where he continued his research at an accelerated rate. He could afford the materials for the time-reversal ritual one more time, but that would bring his bank vault to dangerously low amounts. With the utmost reluctance, he resigned himself to only getting a single do-over.

He returned to the Dursleys' house at night, unwilling to sleep somewhere unprotected, and borrowed his invisibility cloak to sleep under. Knowing himself to be a late sleeper, he forcefully changed his own schedule to early mornings and strict bedtimes. This necessitated a new solution to his concealment, however; his past self would have noticed his cloak missing every evening, as he tended to keep it close.

There was a ritual for that too. In one frenzied afternoon while Harry 1 was out purchasing his flat, Harry drew out the required circle in Dudley's room and forcefully evicted his cousin to sleep on the sofa. Dudley didn't complain.

This time around, Harry didn't waste any time. He was in his ritual flat every day, sunup to sundown, experimenting with spell creation and studying darker and darker curses. He revisited Fine Alley to practice his Imperio and Crucio. It surprised him that the latter came more easily, but he supposed that having lived with Dudley his entire life, he had more experience to draw upon when it came to pain and fear.

He developed his own variation, somewhere between the two, inspired by the draught of living death; one which paralyzed a wizard physically while inflicting the pain mentally.

He only cast it once. The sight of his unfortunate attacker's rigid, writhing, silent scream of agony was too much for him. He hadn't known a face could look that way, could hold so much emotion - so much torment. And he had no countercurse, no way to alter the spell's duration. The man lay there, helplessly silent, until something broke in him. Harry watched the life fade from his tortured eyes, then was promptly sick all over the alley.

The Unforgivables may be terrible, but they were tame compared to what could be done with the knowledge and power Harry had accrued. He vowed then and there to only use his knowledge for himself, never to share it with anyone not bound with magical oaths to protect the knowledge, and certainly not to sell it on the open market in order to earn enough to travel back in time again.

Back to the drawing board.

July came to an end before he created another usable spell; this one a healing charm of much greater potency and effective against magically-inflicted injuries in a way no other spell he'd heard of or found could.

 _That_ he could sell on the open market.

Unfortunately, the Ministry restrictions on new spells, powerful spells, and untested spells created enough paperwork for anyone attempting to go legitimate with their creation, Harry's only customers were Dark and unscrupulous.

They didn't pay very well.

August drew nearer its close, and Harry desperately tried to perfect his silent _expelliarmus_ , his rapid _imperio_ , and his most stable _disillusio_ , accepting that he wouldn't be able to loop back for a third try.

He saw his past self scrawling unrefined circles next door, trying to figure out the time travel ritual. It embarrassed him how ignorant he'd been back then. Had he not even picked up a basic arithmancy book before starting? The leftmost arm was _clearly_ off by at least seven degrees, and the central decagram needed to be shifted to the right.

He ignored it for days, but Harry 1 made no move to fix it, and finally he couldn't stand it any longer. He reframed the circle properly, adding in a couple stabilization runes for good measure, then returned to his own - much more refined and complex - magical circle to continue his final preparations.

It was a relief to stop worrying about his past self running around being an idiot. It felt like much longer than two months; returning to life at the Dursleys - even for only a few days - was like a return to another world entirely.

Harry hadn't realized how much he'd missed Hedwig's company, crashing in Dudley's room and spending his days in a dark flat down a scummy alley or testing spells in an even scummier one. It helped lighten his spirit to have her back on his shoulder, helped alleviate - if never completely erase - the darker edges of who he'd become during those secret, stolen months.

As he carefully and precisely packed up his belongings, tucking his Darkest equipment and books away in an invisible extension circle under his bed for safekeeping, he reflected on everything he'd done and what he'd learned.

He'd decided to officially take up Sirius's legacy, as the alternative would be handing it over to the Lestranges or the Malfoys, neither of whom would give a proper showing to the one person who had ever unequivocally cared for Harry.

Just the thought of how much Sirius had sacrificed for Harry made him furious and sad all over again. So when his official Hogwarts ticket arrived printed 'Harry James Potter-Black' he thought it only fitting that the magical world acknowledged his choice.

Then August ended, and September 1st arrived.

* * *

Sick of putting up with the world, he strode onto the train with his head held high, unwilling to be seen as anything less than himself. His cloak of protective enchantments forcefully pushed away anyone coming too close, and anyone with a modicum of natural talent would be able to sense the power pouring off him.

Hermione's attempted hug was rebuffed, and Harry belatedly realized he hadn't built in an exception for his friends. Ron, trying for a comradely shoulder slap, found himself sprawled against the back of the compartment.

"Sorry," Harry said, pulling out the shrunken parchment on which he'd placed the ritual bindings for the protective enchantment. "It's a bit touchy right now."

Hermione snatched it away the moment Harry set it on the floor, squinting at it with her brow furrowed. "Harry, this is really advanced. Did you do this yourself?"

Harry reclaimed the ritual and corrected a few lines, adding a protected sphere outside, and hastily sketched in Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville as trusted entities. The ritual burned a moment as he fed extra power into it through his hand. Then the enchantment relaxed, allowing Ron to sit down beside Harry properly without being smashed into the window.

"So, how did you do?" Ron asked with forced cheer.

Harry stared at him, uncomprehending.

"You O.W.L.s, he means," said Hermione.

"Oh. I don't remember. I've got them in here somewhere." He rummaged through his bag, producing the slightly-crumpled page. "Only failed useless Divinations and History," he said, passing it over.

"Top marks in Defence! I knew you'd get it," Ron said.

Hermione's face fell as she glanced down the sheet. "Oh, Harry. I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"You needed O to get into Snape's N.E.W.T. class for Potions."

"And?"

"Well," she glanced at Ron, looking somewhat awkward. "You wanted to become an Auror, didn't you?"

Harry supposed he had, once, when he'd imagined he had more time than a single year. He shrugged. "It doesn't matter now, does it? I just need to learn whatever I can, and I don't need _Snivillus_ to teach me. I'm doing just fine on my own."

Ron leaned forward, now that the obligatory school-related talk was, technically, out of the way.

"What did Dumbledore want?"

Harry frowned. That was the problem with living a second, isolated life for months on end; one tended to forget mundane things like correspondences.

"Sorry?"

"He said he'd be talking to you and, if all went well, you'd come stay with us."

Harry vaguely remembered being invited to depart early with Dumbledore. He'd declined, satisfied with his progress and unwilling to allow the disruption to his ritual studies that a visit to the Burrow would have inevitably caused.

As much as he wanted to hang out with his friends, he was living on a timer now. He couldn't afford to waste the little time he'd had free of Minstry or teacher supervision on something as trivial as visiting Ron.

"Oh, that. I was pretty busy this summer, so I told him no."

Ron nearly choked. "You _turned down_ a chance to go off on some mysterious venture with _Dumbledore_?!"

"Is that why you weren't at the Burrow either?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah. Busy." He gestured to his bag, where he'd replaced the ritual circle. "I figure now Voldemort's back-" Ron flinched. "Oh, honestly. Now he's not hiding, I need to be prepared for an attack at any time."

"I could have helped, if you'd told me. I know the eighteen layouts by heart."

"I didn't think of applying arithmancy until last week, and by then it was too late to involve you."

Hermione gaped at him. "You went from non-arithmantic circles to _that_ in under a week?!"

"Well, more or less." _One week, and two months._

Ron scowled. "No wonder you were too busy to visit."

"Ronald, don't be jealous. I think it's very important to protect yourself, Harry. You've done an amazing job."

Harry felt a momentary flash of guilt. Excusing his darker research had been so much easier when living among those whose day-to-day survival could be shattered by a Death Eater attack at any moment. Here, with bright lights, clean floors, and chatting friends, Harry's descent into obsessive study regardless of morality felt almost like a betrayal.

He brushed away the thought. He'd come too far to falter now.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked, more quietly. "After. . . everything that happened."

She meant Sirius; the Department of Mysteries; the confrontation with Voldemort; his weakness fighting Bellatrix.

"Yes," said Harry. "I'm alright."

And he had a few things to say to people, things he should have said years ago.

He sat up abruptly as he saw Draco Malfoy swagger past, his two cronies and a gang of Slytherin girls following.

 _Starting right now._

He stood, but Hermione grabbed his hand before he could take two steps.

"Harry, no! Leave him. He's just a—"

"I'm not putting up with the likes of him tainting my school any more." Harry continued forward, pulling himself sharply from her grasp.

"No, Harry, you can't—"

He stalked out into the corridor and slammed the compartment door behind himself. Malfoy's comeuppance was well overdue.

* * *

The moment Harry left, Ron and Hermione stared at each other.

"Something's wrong," said Hermione. Her voice shook. "We should talk to Professor McGonagall."

"No way," Ron protested. "Harry's got enough to deal with. We don't need to go ratting on him to a teacher."

"That is _not_ Harry!" Hermione's voice grew shrill. "He didn't know a decagram from a triangle three months ago, and now he's whipping out perfect spell circles - _working_ spells too, not just theoretical ones! - and modifying them in moments like it's nothing?"

"Well, I dunno." Ron scratched his head. "I've seen a lot of diagrams like that in your books, Hermione. I think you're overreacting. He could have just copied it down."

A loud bang shook the train, followed by a brief burst of unnerving, near-hysterical laughter.

Hermione stood up. "I'm going out there."

Ron grabbed her sleeve. "Don't. He has to do this."

"This is my fault," Hermione said, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She collapsed back onto the seat. "If I'd tried harder to connect with him over the summer, if I hadn't tried to give him space, we could have. . ."

"Could have what? Sirius is _dead_ , Hermione! I remember when I _almost_ lost my dad, and he actually came home in the end. You've never lost anyone. You can't imagine what that's like!"

"Oh, Ron, don't," Hermione wailed. "I cared about Sirius too."

"Not like Harry. You had your own family. I have mine. Who does he have? His relatives are swine."

Another shudder down the train, this accompanied by a sharp, electric _crack!_

"We have to stop him, Ron, this is _wrong_. I don't care how much he's grieving, Malfoy can't help who his family is."

Ron pounded one fist into the seat beside him. "Malfoy deserves everything he gets," he snarled. "You know what he's like. He's a terrible, petty bully who can't wait to grow up into an evil, manipulative snake like his precious Death Eater father. I wish Harry had tried to knock some sense into him years ago."

"I can't stand this," Hermione said, wiping her face on her sleeve and rising to her feet. "Someone has to put a stop to it."

Ron didn't try to hold her back this time.

She'd expected to see the corridor in shambles, half-imagined Draco lying against the wall with his wand snapped and hands pleading for Harry to stop.

What Harry would be actually doing _to_ their longtime adversary, she couldn't imagine. And that scared her more than anything. She'd _known_ Harry, known who he was, what he was capable of, where his lines were.

Now, she didn't have the faintest idea. How could someone possibly have changed so much in so little time?

Draco, though, was more capable than she'd anticipated. He and Harry stood face to face, wands almost touching each other's chest. Harry's robes were rumpled, and she saw a scorched strip of parchment on the ground which looked quite similar to his protection circle.

She put a hand over her mouth and drew her wand with the other. Harry was the one facing her. His eyes flicked to her briefly, then along the corridor without changing expression the least bit.

Her heart pounded, her wand-hand trembled. She aimed in the general direction of the dueling boys, unsure which she was actually targeting.

"You're dead, Potter!" Draco shrieked. "You know that, right? You and your whole stupid Order, _dead_."

"No," Harry snarled, his own emotions clearly just as hot as Draco's, "I'm going to _win_. I'm never going to back down, never going to give way. You and your Death Eater pals, your time on the top is _done_. I'm not going to stop until the world is free and safe from Voldemort and everyone who ever followed him."

Quick gasps of indrawn breath alerted Hermione to the fact that, though the corridor was empty but for her and the boys, their duel was not unobserved. Compartment doors were cracked, faces pressed against windows.

That was enough to calm her. If there were this many witnesses, neither of them would do anything stupid. Surely not.

Her mind insisted that this must be true; her body kept her wand trained steadily on Harry. Malfoy cared too much about reputation. Harry, this new Harry. . . she had no idea what he'd do. Only once before had she heard his voice so raw with emotion, and this fury scared her like nothing else. At least Malfoy seemed aware of the absurdity of their situation. Harry's face betrayed no glimmer of mercy, no hint of levity. He seemed deadly intent.

Hermione had never seen anyone look so cold and so furious at the same time. She'd never imagined anything Harry did would fill her with such dread.

She took a step back as his power sharpened in the air, an instinctive reaction. Before she could think it through, a faint crackle sounded through the air and Harry lunged forward, planting his free hand against Draco's chest.

"Protego!" Draco shouted, but not quickly enough. His shield only caught the sizzling blast of power from the inside, echoing it back into his face and throwing him down the corridor.

Hermione leapt back as he landed by her feet.

Harry smiled. "You know what he thinks of you. You remember how his evil little friends treat you. He's all yours."

Hermione took another step back. "Harry, that's enough. You've made your point! Please."

"Stupefy!" Draco shrieked, firing off a jet of red light. It splashed off the air around Harry, dissipating harmlessly.

Harry frowned, stalking toward his fallen adversary. Draco scrambled backward, raising his wand as he scurried to take shelter behind Hermione.

Hermione would have laughed, had the situation been any less tense, but now her voice trembled. "Really?"

"He's a coward, just like his father." Harry sneered. "What kind of Death Eater are you, hiding behind a _mudblood_?"

Hermione's breath caught. She'd thought herself immune to pureblood insults. The Slytherins certainly made free enough with them. But to hear Harry say it, it broke something she hadn't realized existed.

"Im—"

"Stupefy," Hermione whispered, and his protection did not stop her spell.

'Harry' didn't even have time to look betrayed as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

 _Author's notes : _

_I had so much fun with this prompt. I wrote the entire thing in one sitting, basically. Of course, it's got my trademarked Not Quite What You Meant spin on it; different timeframe, more dark-leaning than grey, and since I haven't read very many independent!Harry fics, I'm not sure exactly which tropes are expected. But it was fun! And that's all that really matters. :-3_

 _4-8-19 : Minor edit to repair a few broken sentences, fixed a typo, reworded a few things._


	9. You've always known who I am

_Author's Note : __This is a direct sequel to the previous prompt.  
_

* * *

 _ **(You've always known who I am)**_

* * *

Harry woke in the room of requirement. Hermione, Ginny, Ron, Neville, and Luna stood arrayed before him.

He couldn't move.

The light was bright enough that it took him a moment to adapt, and once he had done so he realized he'd not just been paralyzed but also tied up. A quick glance down toward his hands showed that his robes were missing, along with everything in his pockets - including the vast majority of his protective ritual focii. It also meant the ritual circles imprinted on his skin were clearly visible through the thin fabric of his undershirt.

Harry lifted his chin, and in so doing found his head and neck unrestrained despite his apparent status as prisoner. Before he could open his mouth to speak, Hermione took a sharp step forward from the line facing him.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Potter?"

It was so unexpected Harry actually laughed, though it came out a choked and unconvincing sound.

"Hermione, it's me, really. Don't you have a spell you can use to verify? You've always been good at magic. We're only in sixth year, but surely—"

"STOP IT! Stop it. I don't know how you know so much about us, but I'm not going to fall for your trickery."

The others nodded in agreement.

Harry scowled at them. "This isn't funny. Hermione, cast an identification spell or something, and let's get back to—" he cut off, suddenly realizing that he was neither in his train compartment nor any ordinary first-day location in the castle. "What happened? Why aren't we on the train? Why aren't we at the feast? Why aren't we in the common room?"

Harry strained at the bands holding him without success. Even if he weren't petrified from the shoulders down, he'd spent his summer developing his strength magically, not physically, and couldn't have broken free.

He resolved that if he ever got out of this - _when_ he got out - he'd add some form of escape ritual to his repertoire. Preferably another tattoo, and somewhere any captors wouldn't easily discover. He wished there weren't a war going on. Black market contacts were so much more accommodating when not terrified for their lives. Or, rather, when Harry was the only one causing said terror. Much more effective.

"Who are you," Hermione repeated, leveling her wand at Harry, "and what have you done with Harry Potter." Her voice sounded cold and flat.

Harry finally realized just how much not a joke this was. His friends' expressions varied between concern, fear, and anger. He'd never seen Ron look so sickened; terrified and disgusted and betrayed all at once.

"I'm _Harry_ ," he answered. "Not that an impostor would say different. But honestly, why don't you get some veritaserum or something? Guys, come on. Stop wasting everyone's time here." Harry found his temper slipping, anger rising within him despite his best attempts to hold it back.

"You know how hard it is to find veritaserum, or you'd never have dared suggest it." Hermione's voice rose to a near-shriek. "It's not the sort of thing we can just ask Professor Snape for; it's a highly restricted substance! You just want an excuse to run off to the teachers with your lies! I won't let that happen."

"Hermione, calm down! It's me, Harry. Why are you even questioning this?"

"You called me a Mudblood, Harry! You went after Draco Malfoy when he'd done nothing but walk by, and attacked him on the train in front of everyone! You acted like you hadn't even read our letters and were making up replies on the spot. You've been gone three months and now all of a sudden you know Arithmancy better than I do? I've been studying it for three years! The Harry Potter I know could never have—"

"Oh, is that it? You're jealous, because I learned in three months what took you three years? Well guess what, Hermione! Not everyone needs years of teachers and assignments to learn something. Sometimes, all it takes is an application of willpower and determination to get results! If you weren't so busy fawning over teachers and trying to be so good, I'm sure you could be even farther along than I am!"

Hermione burst into tears, but refused to look away. "You are _not_ Harry," she said defiantly, brushing angrily at her eyes. "Harry would never say that. No matter how angry he was, he'd never treat his friends like this."

Ron and Ginny stepped forward, flanking Hermione protectively.

"She's right, mate, you're being a real git."

"Ron? You too? I swear, when this all gets sorted, the two of you are going to feel really stupid."

"The five of us." Neville stepped up too, Luna at his side.

Harry scowled, his anger reaching a tipping point. He concentrated on charging one of the runic circles tattooed on his arm. Building up energy inside your body rather than through a wand was an unpleasant sensation, but they'd given him no choice.

Before the spell reached half full, Hermione snapped, "Harry, no."

Curse Hermione and her ability to sense magic at a distance. No one else noticed, but of course Hermione had learned to do it. Her wand was pointed right at him. She could stun him faster than he could finish. Reluctantly, he relaxed his focus and allowed the gathered power to dissipate.

"We're onto you," said Ron. "Sooner or later, you'll have to drop the illusion, or your polyjuice will wear off, or we'll find the right countercharm. We will find out what you did to Harry."

"I'm so glad you're loyal to me, " Harry said through gritted teeth, "but when it extends to tying me up and threatening me, I don't find myself appreciating the sentiment nearly as much as I ordinarily would! Will none of you stop this madness and just untie me already? You can't expect our absence to go unnoticed for much longer."

"Collin Creevey is doing a magnificent job of pretending to be you," Hermione said defiantly. "A much better job of pretending to be _Harry,_ that is, than _you_ are."

"Alright! Alright. I give up. What do you want from me? How can I. . . _prove_ ," Harry almost choked on the word, "that I am who I _am."_

"Who's Aragog?" Hermione asked at once.

"Hagrid's ridiculous spider."

"What was I wearing when we first met?" Luna asked in her dreamy voice.

"A pair of ridiculous glasses from your father's ridiculous magazine," Harry snarled.

"When did we first meet?" Ginny asked softly.

"When I asked for directions on the ridiculous platform my first year."

Ron crossed his arms. "What happened to Peter Pettigrew?" His voice came out a low growl.

"I let him go, and he went running straight back to Voldemort, the miserable ungrateful rat traitor. Oh, speaking of ungrateful, how about _you_ ungrateful lot let me _go_? We are wasting time here when I could be preparing to fight Voldemort, and instead you insist on this pointless trivia game?

"Oh, and by the way, you should probably have considered it already. But if I had captured and interrogated and replaced myself, don't you think I'd have taken every single memory from this vulnerable little head? You know how rubbish I am at Occlumency. I couldn't even keep out one person I knew was targeting me, much less anyone subtle enough to pull off something like this. Either way, you think I'm an idiot. If I'm Harry, I can't even convince you of the fact, and if I'm an impostor, I'm doing an absolutely rubbish job of it. I'm not sure which possibility is more insulting!

"If I were strong enough to overpower myself, do you really think I'd have been weak enough to be dragged in by you lot? And how about that surprise stunner of yours, Hermione? Do you think an impostor would have been idiot enough to let the five people closest to me through every layer of his protective enchantments? What kind of an idiot do you think I am?"

Harry was shouting by the end of it, but he'd had enough.

"You're not making this any easier, mate," Ron said, but he sounded subdued. Harry wondered if perhaps he'd finally gotten through to him, until he continued. "You don't sound like Harry at all."

"You know why that is?" Harry asked in a deadly voice, turning his full glare upon Ron. "Because I've got _one year to live_ before I have to face Voldemort, and one of us is going to _die_. Because the only person who's ever been a father to me died because I couldn't protect him. I've had five months to think it over, and this is what I've decided. I'm not going to stand by and let Voldemort or anyone else hurt the people I care about ever again. I will do whatever it takes - what _ever_ it takes - to stop him for good. And I'm sorry that we weren't able to go to your house and play Quidditch. But on the whole, I don't think Quidditch is going to save me this time next year when my protections are gone and I'm on my own."

"But you won't be on your own," said Hermione through her tears. "That's why we're all here! Because we're your friends. Or Harry's friends. Oh, this is so confusing."

"There's absolutely nothing confusing about it," Harry said coldly. "I grew up. I had to. I realized I couldn't keep relying on others to do for me what in the end I'll have to do myself. I'm sorry if that means I'm a different person now than I was when we left school, but I refuse to apologize for doing my best to stay alive. And if any of you expect to call yourselves my friends again, then you'll grow up and stop wasting time on this idiocy!"

"The Harry I knew would never go after an opponent who couldn't protect himself," said Neville. "The Harry I knew wasn't the sort to cast an Unforgivable Curse at a fellow student on the train! I don't know if you're an impostor, or telling the truth, but either way you're not the Harry I knew."

"Yeah, that was pretty stupid," said Ron. "Trying to Imperius Draco in front of everyone?"

"You can't honestly tell me he didn't deserve everything I gave him and more," Harry growled.

"I'm not saying he deserves less, but it's not your job to punish him. Apart from being an idiot and a bully, what has he ever done to hurt any of us? He's just an arrogant braggart who doesn't know any better, who grew up in a stupid pureblood family with stupid pureblood prejudices. For someone who claims to have grown up, you're acting very childish about this, Harry."

"I never thought I'd see the day when Hermione Granger defended Draco Malfoy. Maybe it really is the end of the world."

Before anyone could reply, Harry closed his eyes and sighed.

"Look. I get it. You don't agree with my choices, and you haven't had the time to come to terms with them as I have. But you have to face it. This is me, not anyone else. You may not like it, but I'm done being anything for anyone else. My goal, my _only_ goal, is to grow strong enough fast enough to survive past my seventeenth birthday. Once that's done, once Voldemort is gone, we can go right back to being friends, happy, and nice, and noble. I'll gladly play Quidditch and talk about girls, and do all the stupid normal things people have time for when they don't have a dark lord trying to kill them! But right now, can we please just put this whole ridiculous affair aside and get back to what's important?"

A long silence followed his pronouncement. Ron and Hermione looked at each other. Neville and Luna looked at each other. Ron and Ginny looked at each other. No one looked at Harry.

"Alright. Alright, you win. You. . . _might_ be Harry. And if you are, then you're right. This is stupid. And if you're an impostor, you'll make a mistake sooner or later, and get what's coming to you."

"So will you let me go? Also, where's my wand?"

Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out Harry's wand. She hesitated, looking into his eyes for a long moment as though searching for something. Whether she found it or not, she gave the wand a flick and Harry felt his body relax from its petrified state. The bonds holding him released in the same moment, melting away as things in the Room of Requirement did when no longer needed.

He held out his hand for the wand, and again she hesitated. This time, he stared into her eyes, and she blushed and glanced away.

"I'm not saying I trust you," she mumbled, and shoved the wand into his hand.

Harry gave it a casual twirl, sparks trailing from it in its happiness to be reunited with its master. The tension eased, both from himself and the others in the room.

"I told you, it's just me," he said. "Accio robes." His robes flew toward him, and he slipped them over his head, patting the pockets to be sure his pages of ritual circles were still there. He pulled each one out, recharging and activating the spells. They hadn't drained much and would still last several hours each, so he determined that he'd been detained for only an hour or two.

"Why are you so suspicious of me?" he asked as he continued the ritual activations. It would be a time-consuming process.

"Because you're not _like_ this, Harry! You're an incredible student of defence, but you're not _obsessed._ And you've never shown the slightest interest in arithmancy until now. You act different. You treat us differently."

"So it's a contrast? You think I'm an impostor because your past experience doesn't match with the present? Have you considered that _everything_ changed? I can't afford to just be an incredible student, Hermione. I _have_ to be obsessed. I have less than a year before Voldemort can come after me, and he's had decades to prepare. If I'm anything less than obsessed, I won't survive a minute."

"But you're a good person, Harry, and what you tried to do to Draco on the train — that was too far. And if you're really Harry, you would know better. You even tried to get me to _join in_ hurting one of our fellow students! Can't you see how wrong that is?"

Harry turned his wand over in his hands. Everyone was nodding agreement. He looked down, then closed his eyes.

"Not that I'm arguing Malfoy deserved everything he got, mind," Ron said from beside Hermione. "But. . . you did get a bit scary there. And if you really were planning to, y'know, curse him for real, I couldn't really support that. Even for Malfoy."

"I see. Thank you for explaining."

"Harry," Luna said suddenly. "You know we're only doing any of this because we're your friends, right?"

"I know." He didn't open his eyes, focusing on keeping his breathing steady and holding his temper in check. They could fix this. Everything would be fine. He needed to be calm.

"I do hope you are who you say you are," Luna continued. "If it turns out we gave Harry's wand to an impostor, imagine how embarrassing that could be."

"You don't need to worry about that," Harry said softly. Nonverbal magic was fast, but he'd only practiced one spell, and there were five of them.

 _Expelliarmus. Expelliarmus. Expelliarmus. Expelliarmus. Expelliarmus._

His eyes snapped open just in time for his trained reflexes to catch the incoming wands.

Hermione gasped. Ron lunged forward, looking ready to wrestle his wand back by force. The Room began reforming restraints around Harry before he could take a step.

 _Sorry, Hermione_.

"Imperio."

The room stopped shifting, stilled, and became a perfect blank white cube with a single door.

Ron stumbled at the sudden change, and Harry sidestepped his attempt to reclaim his wand.

"Harry what are you—"

"Imperio."

Neville and Ginny tried to run for the door.

Harry was faster.

"Imperio, imperio."

Luna just looked sad. "I hope you know what you're doing," she said, when the others stood passively under his command and he turned his wand on her.

"I do."

She didn't resist, so he didn't need the imperius to hold her. Which was good. Four people at once, especially these ones, strained the limits of his ability.

Starting with Luna, focusing on exactly what he needed changed, he cast a single spell.

"Obliviate."

The memory charm could be used to alter, as well as remove, and he only needed to shift things a very little. Just enough that his new personality would seem natural, as though he'd always been driven and focused, and only increased after hearing the Prophecy rather than changing himself completely.

 _Neville_. "Obliviate," Harry said, then released him from the imperius once the adjusted memories were firmly in place.

Yes, it was possible he could have made peace with them naturally, but he didn't want peace. He needed their trust, needed it unbreakable. If he couldn't trust them with who he was, if they didn't trust him in turn, how would he ever protect them?

 _Ron_. "Obliviate." Pause. Release.

If he survived his next birthday, he could explain everything. Until then, he didn't have time to rely on the sentiment and emotion of others.

 _Ginny_. "Obliviate." Pause. Release.

There was no reason to feel guilty about doing what he had to. Some things were simply necessary.

 _Hermione_. "Obliviate."

Harry hesitated a long moment, then put his wand away.

"Come along, everyone!" Hermione said brightly, breaking the others out of the post-obliviate daze. "Now that we've had our reunion, let's see if the feast is still going on!"

Harry smiled at her. "That's a wonderful idea, Hermione. Lead the way."

Some things were simply necessary.


	10. A Change of Heart

_u/Avaday_Daydream: Upon the diary horcrux's destruction, Lucius Malfoy (who was in the diary's thrall) makes a SPECTACULAR about-face on the Voldemort/pureblood issue. Bonus points if he proposes to Harry or Dumbledore (poor Narcissa!)_

* * *

 ** _A Change of Heart_**

* * *

Draco Malfoy stared in disbelief.

His father ran into the Great Hall in the middle of lunch, looking more harried than Professor Quirrell with a troll on his heels: jacket askew, ink smudged across his face, no cane, wand held openly in one clenched fist.

Lucius stormed up the dais to Dumbledore, who stood swiftly at the intrusion. But Lucius knelt, proffering his wand on his upraised hands. Dumbledore took it, a puzzled look crossing his ancient face.

"Father! What are you doing?" Draco hadn't planned to jump to his feet, hadn't planned to speak at all; it just burst out of him. He felt himself flush hot with embarrassment - now both Malfoy men had made a fool of themselves.

Well, he'd begun, may as well continue. He strode up to the dais himself, ignoring the sudden flurry of whispers behind him, and grabbed his father's arm.

"You can't proposition Dumbledore in front of everyone!" Draco hissed. "I don't care if he leans that way, you're making a scene."

Lucius accepted the wand back, as Dumbledore held it out to him, a thin line of blue magic twining around both of their wrists for the brief moment when both hands held the wand.

Draco wanted to scream, but he pressed his lips tightly together and dragged his father to his feet.

"We're leaving," he declared loudly, with as much forced dignity as he could muster.

He caught sight of Dumbledore watching them, bemused. Draco forced himself to look away from the old headmaster. Bad enough his father had finally snapped beneath the pressure, worse that he'd done it in public.

He suspected his face would never be the right colour again. His ears felt so warm he was surprised they weren't on fire.

Of course, the moment he thought it, his not-quite-completely-under-control-after-all accidental magic had to go and enflame him. Titters and jeers from the Gryffindors followed him as he pulled his father after him out into the corridor and away from the watching students.

The moment they were alone, Lucius dropped to his knees. "Draco, forgive me. I've been a terrible father, and you deserve better. I've decided to dedicate my life to everything the Dark Lord opposed, in vengeance for the darkness he has wrought on our family and our world through me."

"That doesn't explain why you just proposed to Dumbledore in front of the entire school!" Draco whispered, voice cracking with the effort of not shouting.

Lucius waved it away as though inconsequential. "I was simply pledging my life and soul to the service of the Light, nothing so dramatic as all that. Relax, Draco, I need to look at you properly. Stand still for me, please."

Draco found he was pacing, and forced himself to stillness. He met his father's eyes, and they were nothing like he'd expected. Actually, his whole face was wrong. The detached air of aristocratic grace had vanished, replaced with a warm and desperate desire so open that Draco felt his face heat again.

"Father, what is _wrong_ with you?"

Lucius leaned down, wrapping Draco in his arms. Draco went still and stiff, unsure of how to deal with this. Then he understood, and he scowled. "You're being controlled by the Imperius, aren't you?"

Lucius let him go, laughing, tears leaking freely down his face. "Oh, Draco, no. For the first time in far, far too long, _no_! I'm free, finally free. And now I can meet you properly. I'm so sorry, I wish I'd been able to stop him. If you've any redeeming qualities, they're no thanks to me."

Draco's scowl deepened. That had sounded suspiciously like an insult, despite its jovial delivery.

Then Lucius was hugging him again, and he didn't understand and wanted it to _stop_ but he just kept laughing and crying and holding on like he'd never let go.

"Father, that's enough," Draco said, trying very hard to seem calm. "I. . . I love you too." The words felt stiff and awkward, but he forced them out anyway. Whatever Dumbledore and the Light had done, this seemed to be the proper response.

Lucius finally released him, and just as well for the doors opened and the rest of the students emerged to head to class. Draco caught more than a few curious looks, and that was just standing. If they'd been caught _embracing_ it would be absolutely humiliating.

"Perhaps we should take a walk outside, Father," Draco suggested, taking Lucius's hand and leading him gently away from the press of students. His father didn't resist, only held his hand a little tighter. Draco was now quite sure that his face would be solid red forever. This wasn't proper! Why was he the only one who cared about propriety any more?

When finally they reached a secluded area of the grounds, away from the greenhouses and common routes of travel between classes, Draco wrenched his hand free of his father's grasp and took a deep breath.

"Father. You are acting disgracefully and besmirching the Malfoy name. Cease at once."

Lucius's smile faltered, but not enough. His eyes still showed his every emotion, his previously commanding presence relaxed into something so unrecognizable that Draco almost wondered if he were an imposter. But, no, he had his own wand. Anyone else attempting to so much as _touch_ Lucius's wand without permission would be burned by it.

But the time it had taken them to reach a new location had given Draco the time to calm down somewhat and finally remember the family protocols for any suspicious behavior. At the first sign of his father being controlled by an outside party, Draco's first task would be to usurp their control in order to at least shield the family from the repercussions of whatever may come next.

Imperio couldn't be used to eliminate itself, but it could be used to override a previous instance of the spell, or at the very least initiate a magical contest of wills between the original caster and second over who claims control of the subject. In this case, Draco and Lucius's family connections should give his father sufficient motivation to surrender to Draco's control in preference to his original assailant. It wouldn't be a permanent solution, but it would buy time.

Draco prepared himself, summoning up his willpower and focusing on how desperately wanted, needed, to control his father's actions. The desire wasn't nearly as hard as holding the target in his mind. It was so unthinkable to be casting such a powerful spell against his own father, whatever the circumstances, that Draco nearly balked. But, necessity helped steel his resolve.

"Imperio," Draco incanted quietly. And just like that, he was in complete control. He'd expected something more, a resistance perhaps, or some contest from whoever had initially caused Lucius's current inexplicable state. But no, neither Lucius nor his controller made the slightest resistance to Draco's usurpation of control.

"Tell me who is controlling you, father," Draco commanded, somewhat awkwardly. It still felt so wrong.

"At first it was Lord Voldemort," Lucius replied, his voice dreamy and disconnected. "After he fell, I know not. One of his followers I assumed. Until today."

Draco blinked and stared for a long moment before he regained the ability to speak. "Lord Voldemort? You mean that you've been under the Imperius constantly since before the Dark Lord fell, since before I was born?"

"Yes. This is the first time I've met you without another controlling my actions."

For a second something jumped within the spell, Draco's control wavering as Lucius's emotion peaked. His wand hand trembled, but he didn't release the spell. It could still be a trick, a trap of some sort. He could only know the truth if he held on.

"So that nonsense with swearing yourself to the Light? With Dumbledore?"

"Yes. Once I would never have considered pledging myself to the Light, but now I find that the Dark has little to offer me and perhaps in my youth I was more misguided than I knew. I've seen how you were brought up, Draco, and I would never wish that upon anyone again. If that is what darkness demands of me, then I will oppose it with all the strength in my soul."

"Because of me?" Draco wasn't entirely sure what to make of that.

"Yes. My family is more important to me than any cause or custom. I would fight Voldemort himself for you, Draco, and you know the Light values family in a way the Dark cannot comprehend."

"You'd forswear yourself of the Dark, abandon centuries of family dedication, just like that? If you are only released from your Imperius today, how can you have had enough time to make that decision? Don't you need to give the matter consideration before just throwing yourself into a new cause?"

"I have thought of it for decades. This is no rash decision, Draco. It's the inevitable result of what has been done to me. I can do nothing else. I am not in error and I will not be swayed. No matter what it may cost me."

Draco let his hand fall, the spell's connection breaking along with his concentration. His father, defecting to the Light? Forswearing their family allegiance to the Dark? It seemed so impossible, so unthinkable.

But then he met eyes which were open and loving instead of cold and distant, and some part of Draco realized he'd always known, always feared, always _hoped_ that there should be something more. The revelation stunned him, yes, but it did not truly shock him as much as he'd have expected.

"What does this mean?" he whispered, his voice trembling, just shy of breaking. It was all too much, even for a 12-year-old.

"It means things are going to change," Lucius said, drawing Draco into another hug. "Starting with you. I love you, Draco, I love you and you're never going to have to doubt that again."

Draco's long-trained stiffness didn't dissolve at once, but he forced himself to give in to his father's embrace. Little by little he relaxed, and then suddenly he was crying into Lucius's shoulder. Relief and fear and confusion all burst from him in a flood of tears which he couldn't hold back any longer.

He pointedly ignored the dampness on his own shoulder, the trembling of the other body pressed against his. It was not the ideal reunion of two souls held apart for so long. If anyone had seen the two Malfoy men hugging each other and sobbing they probably would have assumed Narcissa was dead. But this was not grief, and when they finally separated and self-consciously got out their embroidered handkerchiefs in unison and laughed freely with each other, Draco began to understand that perhaps his father's about-face was not quite so unreasonable as he'd first assumed.

For in the end, why should dedication to a political and magical ideal hold any weight when compared to family?


	11. Soulless Survivor

_Prompt by Q-35712 on r/HPfanfiction: Harry is a empty shell. The Curse left him as a soul-less shell._

* * *

 ** _Soulless Survivor_**

* * *

Voldemort was gone. The war was over. The Death Eaters were being arrested wholesale. And it was all thanks to the sacrifice of one family.

James and Lily Potter, who had thrice defied the Dark Lord, were dead. Their only son, the prophesied hero, the Chosen One, defeated the Dark Lord in their one and only confrontation.

But for Harry Potter the victory was hollow.  
As hollow as the eyes that now stared uncaring at the weeping giant who held him.

Hagrid wept for the loss of his friends, and he wept for the child who could not mourn his own parents.

Harry was lauded as The Lone Survivor, and hundreds of families vied for the privilege of caring for him. The Ministry accepted eighty-seven applications - with accompanying donations of funding - and eventually narrowed down the options to three families.

Sirius Black stood at the top of the list, as his family resources made him ideally suited to ensure Harry's survival and care were the best possible under the trying conditions. The only mark against him was his violent massacre of several known and suspected Death Eaters on the night the war ended. He had voluntarily submitted to evaluation at the St. Mungo's psyche ward, and passed their tests sufficiently to be deemed sane, but it was still a mark against him.

The claim by Albus Dumledore was widely considered to be the front-runner. Despite his lack of worldly possessions - and the meagerness of his accompanying donation - as the foremost sorcerer in Britain he was ideally placed to work toward Harry's eventual recovery. His not-so-subtle hints reminding everyone of his connections to Nicholas Flamel were seen by many as the promise of finding a cure to the seeming soullessness of the young hero.

The third claimant had the least qualifications, and the deepest pockets. Lucius Malfoy was one of the first Death Eaters to publicly denounce the fallen Dark Lord, and insisted that his involvement had only ever been without his consent and enforced by the Imperius. He met with the Minister of Magic in a private conference, providing sufficient evidence of the truth of his claims and purity of his future intentions that the Minister personally vouched for his suitability as a guardian for The Lone Survivor.

Harry himself was not consulted. Magical and mundane examination had concluded that he was incapable of thought, had no memory, and behaved only on physical impulse. He could swallow when food was placed in his mouth, but either could not or did not chew. He twitched when touched, but had no voluntary control over his body.

After much deliberation, and many more private meetings with the individuals involved, an arrangement was reached. Harry would be given to shared custody between the houses of Black and Malfoy, with Narcissa as the primary caregiver and Sirius permitted unlimited access to him. The arrangement suited both parties, with only Dumbledore protesting the decision.

Harry was given a room at Malfoy Manor, fed and clothed and kept warm. He never spoke, never moved, hardly blinked.

Sirius visited often, bringing extravagant gifts, and traveled far.

Narcissa, though at first resigned to the task of caring for a soulless child for her husband's machinations, grew to love the empty, undemanding boy.

Harry never argued, never fought her, only stared with that same open expression. She could imagine it meant happiness, some days, or that he was curious on others. She began speaking to him, telling him about the frustrations of raising the headstrong Draco, or of her political activities with the Ministry on behalf of the family. She asked him questions, sometimes, and searched his soulless gaze for any hint of a reply. She often found this helped her to work through her problems.

Harry became her confidant, sharing her victories and troubles, her refuge and comfort whenever life grew too heavy or frustrating. When he was still young, she would carry him and sing to him. As he grew older, she required the aid of magic to lift his increasingly heavy body.

Some days Sirius would sit with them, and those days were quieter and more somber. Sirius didn't visit as often, the longer time went on. Narcissa knew it pained him to see Harry in such a condition. He'd begun optimistic that the boy's state could be reversed, but continued evidence against such a miracle wore on him. He continued to provide financial support for Harry's needs and she didn't mind him leaving the rest to her.

Narcissa hummed as she cast the charms to stimulate his muscles and prevent atrophy, no longer considering them a chore. She kept hoping that one day he'd sit up and smile at her, but she knew it would never happen. He would never stop needing her.

And like so much else she'd once deemed unthinkable, the thought did not trouble her at all.


	12. Not a wizard, not for you

_u/SoullessDCLXVI: Reverse Dursley living situation. Petunia and Vernon love magic and are psyched to know that it's real. They genuinely love the Potters and mourn them as is natural. Harry, on the other hand, believes it to be a fiction and can't stand it. He doesn't despise his Aunt or Uncle, but he is known to get into heated fights with them about living in fantasy lands._

* * *

 _ **Not a wizard, not for you**_

* * *

"You think _this_ is going to change anything?" Harry ripped the letter in half and threw it in the air. Though it pained him to tear up anything with writing on it, he consoled himself that this particular paper contained no information of value.

Petunia gasped. Dudley sidled away, in case she started shrieking, and Harry glowered at his cousin. Though they didn't agree about magic, Dudley was at least reasonable about it. Petunia was something of a fanatic.

"But surely," Vernon put in before his wife could get started, "it would be reasonable to learn more about what magic can offer you before writing it off entirely on hearsay?"

"Hah! And waste an entire school year where I might be learning about useful things? Do they even have a mathematics course at Smogwords?"

"Hogwarts," Petunia corrected. "And I believe they do, though they call it something else. Arithma-something."

"Well, that's something at least, but I hardly anticipate them being up to any sort of modern standard. They still write on parchment, for goodness' sake!"

"Expensive parchment," Vernon said, and Harry saw an opening.

"Expensive school," he said slyly. "I know I have a trust fund and everything, but wouldn't it be better to invest that in stocks and business rather than throw it away on some backwards antiquated school for witches?"

"And wizards, like you," Petunia corrected.

Harry rolled his eyes, though he knew it was childish, he couldn't help himself. "It's not like I've memorized every bit of their propaganda, unlike some."

Petunia gasped, affronted, and Harry sighed. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to imply that you're gullible. I know they've put on a good show. But even if magic _is_ real, I can't see any use for it. Otherwise, it would be already in widespread use. It's clearly a useless niche that's going nowhere. I've got to think about my future before deciding to spend half my fortune on an education."

"That's very forward-thinking of you," Vernon said approvingly.

"But, Harry," said Dudley, speaking for the first time. "It's a secret club that no one can talk about without sounding crazy. We know about it, but who else have you ever met who'd even thought of it?"

Harry's next argument died unspoken. He turned to his cousin, tilting his head consideringly.

"Yes, that's a very good point," Petunia hastened to add. "I'm sure if you have concerns with their lack of modern standards, you could be just the catalyst they need to bring their programs up to standard. Especially with your reputation—"

"Don't," Harry warned, anger flaring at the words. "This isn't about my parents. It's about _me_."

"I didn't mean to imply—" Petunia faltered.

"This is _my_ decision, not theirs. Even assuming your grand stories about their heroics are true, they were the ones who couldn't leave well enough alone. Who weren't willing to stop fighting even though they knew it put them at risk. Put _my future_ at risk. They left me, and don't you dare imply I should be _using_ that stupidity as a _popularity stunt_. I'm not seven. I don't need them any more."

"But, Harry, dear," Petunia began, but Harry shook his head.

"No. I won't go. You can't make me."

* * *

That wasn't the end of it. Of course it wasn't. Letters continued to arrive, one every day, somehow ending up right in Harry's path however he tried to avoid it. He wondered if there were a magical mail-person whose job it was to invent ways to deliver post least intuitively, and how much that person were paid. Such a waste of time and potential.

But he didn't want to reform society. He didn't want to be a rallying cry for change and a new order. All Harry wanted was to work hard like his uncle, earn a place in society like his aunt, and invest wisely in business like his grandparents so that when the time came he could pass on even more to his own children than what he'd been given.

He wanted to very emphatically NOT get mixed up with crazy witch cults with their secret wars and their mysterious disappearances. He wanted to be there for his children, the way Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were there for Dudley and him.

And as much as he believed, secretly in his heart, that magic could be the most powerful, useful, beautiful thing in existence, though he knew that seeking its secrets could give him more than he could ever dream, he remained steadfast in his refusal to be swayed. All the more so, knowing that his own emotions wanted to betray him.

Because this wasn't just about him. It was about who he wanted to be and what he wanted to live for. And in the end, young though he was, attractive though the prospect of waving a stick and flying away to a magical castle might be, his resolve was stronger than the seductive desire of magic.

Harry wouldn't ever be a father who disappeared. He'd be the man who lived.

* * *

 _Author's Note : I wrote this from memory several days after the prompt was posted, so obviously I was a bit off on the particulars, but it was fun and a good way to finish out the year. ;) Happy end-of-2019 y'all! Time to get used to typing 2020 instead_.


	13. Letter of the Law

_Prompt by u/StrikingExplanation7: Lord Potter-Black-Perevell-Gryffindor-Slytherin decides to be child-free. All those family lines, pure of blood with much power and tradition, gone._

* * *

 ** _Letter of the Law_**

* * *

"That's fine. I have no opposition to any of these women. However, you should know, I'm asexual."

"You're only attracted to acromantulae?"

"No. I have no interest in sexual activity whatsoever. In fact, it violently repulses me."

They stared at Harry. Harry stared at them.

"You. . . what?"

"No. Sex. Not going to happen. No matter who, what, or how."

"Umm. . . Excuse me please, one moment."

Harry smiled politely and waited.

They would look over the contracts and stipulations meted upon him, and find the same thing he had. He was required to marry. Certain houses required him to marry with certain other houses. There were rituals for the bindings, and there were stipulations for which children could inherit.

There was no rule saying he had to *have* children. It was a social expectation, something everyone knew and no one bothered to put into law.

After all, with a beautiful pureblood witch soulbound to you, what man could resist? What man would _want_ to?

And it was just the magical world's misfortune that they wasted all that potential on him. So many bloodlines, so many hopes and desires, stupidly thrust upon the one man who wanted nothing to do with it.

He would live well and long, he would act in the best interests of the families for whom he was responsible, but he refused to change who he was. He refused to pretend otherwise. If they wanted to give him power, he would use it as he saw fit. And if they sought to manipulate him with the ties of loyalty he'd accepted, they were welcome to try.

Harry Potter-Black-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Selwyn-Ravenclaw-Monroe-Hufflepuff was far too important, too powerful, and too well-connected. They would eventually come to the same conclusion, though they fought and blustered every step of the way. No attempt at revising the laws would go through. No creative re-interpretation of the contracts would suffice.

He would do as he wanted; they couldn't do a thing about it. And what Harry wanted was something far deeper than the mundane and the physical. Children would be nothing but a distraction.

He may be married on paper to more heiresses than any reasonable man could want, but in the end the ties themselves mattered to him more than the women. His bloodline mattered little when weighed against his knowledge. Magic was a far greater responsibility than any societal contract, any unspoken law.

His heirs would not be his descendants, but his students.

And if half the pure-blood families in Great Britain were truly stupid enough to have tied their fates to his whims, then they deserved to watch as they lost everything.


	14. Alternate Reality

_u/KronkyMalonky: You scroll through Netflix and click play on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, enjoying the nostalgia until as Harry and the students are about to enter the dining hall, suddenly with a flash of light and rubbing of your eyes, you discover you are now Harry Potter!_

* * *

 ** _Alternate Reality_**

* * *

"THE ONE WITH THE DARK LORD'S SPIRIT WITHIN SITS AT YOUR TABLE! THE FRAGMENTS OF HIS SOUL SCATTERED, BUT NOT LOST! THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD, THE ONE OF PROPHECY, WILL BRING THEM ALL AND IN THE DARKNESS BIND HIM!" You bellow your best Trelawny impression, dramatically slumping to the ground after your grand pronouncement. A beat passes, then you blink up at everyone around you as though as confused as them.

"What, why is everyone staring at me?"

"You shouted something and then fell over, mate," whispers another student.

"Something about a dark lord sitting here with us."

"Well of course he is," sneers what could only be Draco Malfoy. "Everyone knows Dumbledore is the evilest most manipulative dark lord the world has ever seen. And an incompetent fool to boot."

"You realize those are mutually exclusive, right?" you mutter. He ignores you.

"Children, please settle down. Greengrass, Daphne?"

A nondescript girl walks over to the hat to be sorted, and you try to catch a glimpse of her face. But there are too many people in the way. You can't even tell if her hair is dark or light. It isn't important, you suppose. A mere side-quest.

The sorting proceeds as anticipated, though it takes some arguing to convince the hat to put you in Gryffindor.

You don't make any further fuss that day, though you do write out a quick list of everything important you remember from canon just in case. You hope that Dumbledore can figure out your hints from the 'prophecy' but you can't afford to rely on that.

The moment you're free of supervision and fans, you slip away upstairs to find the diadem.

It's harder than anticipated, the castle more capricious and the instructions you remember so vague. You spend hours pacing the halls in different sections, desperately needing to get at the room of requirement, and finally a door opens to allow entry.

The search takes even longer, but you know what you're after and roughly where it should be. When you finally do find it you realize that touching it might be a bad idea. Fortunately, there is basically anything imaginable here, so you find a pair of lacy gloves that aren't too much too big and grab the cursed item.

One down.

You turn to leave but Quirrell stands between you and the exit.

"Very clever, boy," hisses Voldemort's voice. "But you underestimate me to your peril."

"Yeah, yeah. Do your worst."

"Avada kedavra!" he snarls, and that's the end of that. Oops.

* * *

You sit up groggily from where you fell asleep on the sofa. The end title screen is still up. Neville Longbottom and the Dark Diadem. One of your favourites. You smile and rewind to the last thing you remember before nodding off. The great hero of the first war is about to deliver his final prophecy before disappearing for good, and it'll be up to the kids to investigate.

Such a wonderful series. It's no wonder it gained global acclaim.


	15. Dovahkiin's Son

_u/AnselaJonla: A burst of accidental magic takes five year old Harry Potter to Skyrim. Six years later he returns, with his adopted parent in tow: the Dragonborn._

* * *

 _ **Dovahkiin's Son**_

* * *

Harry sat alone in his compartment, wondering why they hadn't yet arrived at their destination. Then he began to wonder if the active nature of the trip meant they were going to be attacked, and he watched the skies carefully, ready in case of dragon wings.

He wasn't anticipating an attack from the compartment's door, which is why it took him off guard when it slid noisily open.

Harry leapt to his feet, fire blazing to life in hands held together, a firebolt charging and ready to fire by the time the stranger poked his head in.

"Woah," said the newcomer, an unarmed youth, staring at Harry in awe. "How did you do that?"

Harry let the spell dissipate. "As son of the Archmages, I've picked up a few things."

"Your hands are glowing."

Harry nodded in agreement.

"Why are your hands glowing?"

"In case a dragon attacks the train. I've got to be fast to interrupt it before it kills anyone."

Speaking of, Harry returned to his seat by the window and resumed his vigil.

"Um, can I sit here? Everywhere else is full."

"Yeah, go ahead."

"You're not going to throw fire at me or anything?"

"You're a child. Unless you attacked me, it would be a stupid waste of energy to try, even if I wanted you dead for some reason."

Why the locals made such a fuss about Harry surviving a single attack as an infant was beyond him. Everyone knew innocent children couldn't be harmed. Even now, he would only register as a threat to foes after his first attack. Which came in handy when one's house was regularly attacked by everything from giants to vampires.

Pincer rattled his claws from underneath the bench, and the new boy recoiled, drawing his legs up off the ground. "What was that?"

"Oh, that's my pet. Come on out, Pincer." The mudcrab scuttled out hesitantly, waving his pincers at the other boy in greeting. Harry returned his attention to the sky.

"It's not some kind of spider, is it?"

"No, he's a mudcrab."

"And he won't bite?"

"Of course not."

The boy fell silent for a long moment before asking, "What's so interesting out the window?"

"I told you, I'm keeping watch for dragons."

"You know there are no dragons in this part of the world, right?"

"That's what everyone said about Skyrim."

"But there really aren't any. And if they find one, they ship it off to a reserve. I know because my brother, Charlie, works with dragons."

Harry stiffened, turning his attention to the boy. "Which dragons, specifically?"

The boy shrugged. "I don't know. But it's in Romania."

"Hm." Harry turned back to the window.

"You don't have to worry, really."

"If it's not dragons, it'll be giants or vampires or wolves or bandits. Just because we're safe doesn't mean everyone is."

"The train is protected by powerful enchantments, nothing hostile can get at us."

Harry considered this a moment. "If we're not going to be attacked on the way, why haven't we arrived yet?"

"So we can get to know one another, probably. The train is magic, so it always takes the whole day to get there."

"Interesting. Well, if talking to you is what's required, then let's talk."

"My name's Ron. What's yours?"

"Harry."

"Harry who? I know a lot of Harrys."

"It said Potter on my letter, but I'm really more a Smith or Firehand."

Ron looked at Harry's glowing hands. "Yeah, I can see that. Wait, did you say _Potter_? As in _the_ _Harry Potter_?"

"Yes, I suppose. Though I admit, the notoriety in this country is significantly stranger than back home. Back home it's all 'Archmage's son, son of the Dovahkiin, how many dragons have you slain this week,' and here it's 'oh, you didn't die when an adult attacked you unprovoked, hooray'? I don't get it, but cultures are different I suppose."

He glanced out the window by habit, saw nothing, and remembered that the point of this quest was to talk, so he turned back to Ron, waiting for a response.

The boy finally spoke. "You kill dragons?"

"Son of the Dovahkiin? Kinda our job to keep rogues in check. If they're not abiding by the laws, then they need to die. And ever since Alduin's brief rise, there have been all too many rogue dragons who think the nearest town would make a great breakfast."

Pincer clicked his claws disapprovingly. Harry patted him on his shelled back.

"How did you get that thing approved anyway?" Ron asked, glancing sideways at the mudcrab. "It looks like some kind of engorgement charm malfunctioned."

"Engorgement charm? Is that a kind of spell?" Harry leaned forward. "Can you teach me?"

"Yeah, it's a spell, and no, of course I can't teach you. That's what we're going to school for. Because we… well, because most of us don't already know much magic."

For the first time, Harry began to feel that this new country might not be so bad after all. If they had a whole new kind of magic he'd never heard of, no wonder his parents thought it worthwhile to send him here.

He couldn't wait to get started.


End file.
